Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #91 Green Exercise!

pqtd 91 Green Exercise

 

This is another name for something that I’ve been recommending for a long time now- I called it Forest bathing; where a person would walk about in nature, in a forest as I do almost daily, or in any natural landscape, be it a beachfront, along the river, or just in a park.  It turns out that the University of Essex, in England, has been extensively studying the benefits of exercise in Nature for over 12 years!

 

They have lots of studies that they have done on the benefits of exercising in nature as opposed to in a gym setting, and the benefits are manyfold.  Primarily, mental benefits come from getting out in nature- just think about it, just as our paleolithic ancestors eating an ancestral, paleo type of diet, and we have evolved to do so as well- just as they slept long hours each and every night- so too did they spent ALL of their waking hours out in nature! 

 

It is something we have hard-wired into us.  We are creatures of nature,and are meant to be IN nature on a daily basis.  The best way to experience nature is by exercising outside, not just sitting in a chair, say, on a beach or in a lawn. 

 

I like to take a hike through my woods on pretty much a daily basis.  Barefoot is best, or now, when it is getting colder here in Wisconsin, I wear my Xero sandals, which are just a slim piece of rubber between my bare feet and the ground... later, when it’s even colder, I will wear my moccasins, which are just leather between my feet and the ground, allowing my toes, and every tiny muscle in my foot to balance and strengthen as I go. 

 

I think, beyond mental benefits such as alleviating stress and preventing depression and worry, such exercise has definite physical positives as well.  The hyper-oxygenated air in a forest or any plant covered terrain is wonderfully beneficial, as is the very sounds of nature: the rustling branches, the calls of birds and small animals, and the feel and crunch of pine needles and dry leaves underfoot.  Even the pollen from the trees is something that is good for us, since we have co-evolved with it since before time began!

 

In addition, by being outside, we use our eyes as our ancestors did, as they are meant to be used.  We look off towards the horizon, actively as we move, not at a screen right in front of our face, and we are engaged in, and actually a PART of nature!  This is something we need reinforced, in this day of artificial, sterile environments.

 

I sometimes, about once per week, sprint barefoot around my property, in short interval bursts.  This is great, and something I look forward to, usually on Sundays.

 

But for a daily Green exercise regimen?  Take a pair of small dumb bells, lately I’ve been using a pair of 7 pounders, one in each hand.  Then PUMP them as you walk!  This makes a leisurely walk, with plenty of time to observe nature as you go, into a demanding, total body workout.

 

Pump with high curls each step, or do side extensions for the deltoids as you go.  Stop periodically, and do a set of pushups on the dumb bells- it keeps your hands clean, and you can go lower on each rep!

 

You can even stand perfectly still, and do curls, or presses for awhile, and then resume walking- a great variation is to mimic the moves of cross country skiing with the bells making the arms work as hard as the legs.  Experiment!

 

Have fun with this!  It is demanding enough that it could be a stand alone exercise and mental health regimen.  Oh, it has a name, this dumb bell protocol- Heavyhands.  It was very popular in the 1980’s, and somehow has fallen out of the mainstream.  I guess it is just so cheap and easy, so doable by anyone, that no one figured out how to make money off of it!  (No expensive equipment, no pricey shoes or gym memberships)...

 

Oh- it also doesn’t take long at all!  15 minutes is plenty; trust me, it’s very taxing, but since all the “work” is spread around all of your limbs (PanAerobics), it seems easier.

So go ahead.  Go green!  Even if you’re NOT a Packer’s fan!

 

 

 

 

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Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #90 Choose your paleo home wisely

pqtd 90 Live in a Paleo Friendly home

 

I don’t know why I am so inflammatory, but I KNOW that this little podcast will be so:

 

I am here to suggest that you NOT live in a big city, that you NOT raise your children IN a big metropolitan city (at least in the US, I know little of those overseas which may be very different), AND I also think you should not raise your family in the suburbs that surround these cities!!

 

Pause to hate PaleoJay... OK, let’s start again:

 

I am basing all of this on history, ancient history is a particular interest of mine.  When Rome was collapsing, nothing at all was wrong with her armies, or her strategies.  It was all her POLITICS.

 

Corruption at the highest levels of government, and the LIVES of those at those levels, had degenerated to the point where ALL that they could think about was immediate self-advantage, and how to manipulate things for maximum profit and gain. 

 

The original notions of the “good of the state and the commonwealth” were utterly discarded, and self-interest in the short term was all that mattered!

 

The troops were called back from faraway Britain, although everything was under control there, because the back at ROME, power politics were unravelling.  Again, this had NOTHING to do with the armies, and invaders, or anything else- it was all about the collapse of morals and law and order and a consensus about how to live!

 

Sound familiar? 

 

In modern America, I believe we are about there now:  our army is second to none.  But with NERO in charge (I mean  Obama here, sorry but it’s very, very true!) our army is hamstrung.

 

Our moral landscape has collapsed; the Knockout Game is alive and well in our big cities, where young men purposefully KNOCK UNCONSCIOUS old women and men as a GAME!! 

 

And our media purposefully IGNORES and tries to suppress it! 

 

In ancient Rome, MY ancestors, the Germans, were constantly raiding the borders of the country, trying to invade.  And during this period, the YOUTH (the liberals of the time) in Rome idolized the Germanic barbarians, and strutted about the capital in “trousers”, (which were considered uncouth and totally barbarian!) and wore “mustaches”, which Romans abhorred!

This is right in line with what is going on now.  Let’s go back a bit, to the 1970’s when Tom Wolfe wrote a very perceptive book called “Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers”.

 

In this book, Tom Wolfe was pointing out how liberal guilt had destroyed the ability of the ruling class to even RECOGNIZE that their decisions were literally DESTROYING the empire, in other words destroying WESTERN CIVILIZATION ITSELF. 

 

All in the name of “fairness”. 

 

This is a mirror image of what happened in ancient Rome:

 

The Germans “asked” if they could “settle” in Roman territory.  After much deliberation, the Roman Senate (under Nero!), said OK- but they said only for a limited time...

 

AND, over time, the Germans did NOT leave, and the armies were all called back to defend the capital, and the empire fell... leading to over 1000 years of darkness and horror, basically the end of western civilization.

 

My point is this: 

 

We are treading this thin ice in civilization once again. 

Back then, anyone who could retreated into rural, idyllic types of areas.  Like Spain, England and France- back then, these were really, really “out of the way backwaters”. 

 

And then, they built castles- fortresses! 

 

And this is the start of Medieval Life, although then it was just SURVIVAL.  I believe we are at a similar juncture in history.

 

The barbarians have been given an open door- illegals preferred!  The Roman/US purse has been supplied for unlimited welfare, and once again Western Civilization is ripe for the plucking!

 

Sad but true, all because of corruption,  and unwarranted guilt over doing really, really well for millennia...

 

My advice?

 

Get OUT of major cities!  Things are bad, and looking way, way worse.  Detroit used to be a “center of culture”; most major US cities are following that path!

 

Sorry, I MEAN THE SUBURBS TOO!  I hate what the suburbs have become- the rampant (hyper Roman) consumerism and flagrant slavish allegiance to “fashion” has recurred time and time again, and only leads to horrible crucibles for children to survive.  You only have to read David Copperfield to understand this...

 

Get your families into a small town, semi-rural or rural environment.  Somewhere where you KNOW your neighbors, what they do for a living, and you know them really, and completely, not just their Linked In profile.

 

I know a guy who has an internet business.  He can live anywhere he wants!  He used to live in NYC, but he has little kids and a wife...

 

He did just what I recommended!  He moved to a small town (really small, about 1300 people), in rural Wisconsin! 

 

If you can do it, do it.  Move to a rural, or at least a small city environment.  This is “Paleo” in a huge way! 

 

The “urban shuffle” SUCKS!  If you have children, even more so. 

 

Now, more than ever, anyone who wants to “sustain Western Civilization” had better move beyond the areas of corruption, those areas that NERO has destroyed, and go back to SMALL TOWN AMERICANA! 

 

It has not yet been ruined, and is the BEST HOPE FOR US ALL IN THE FUTURE! 

ALL YOU NEED TO DO, is get as FAR from ROME (the US GOVT.) as possible! 

 

Wait it out.

 

 

 

 

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Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #89 The Perfect Overall Paleo Exercise?

Heavy hands- the best paleo exercise of all!

 

I was a heavy hands guy from the beginning, in 1982 I got Leonard Schwartz’s book “Heavy hands”, and it made real sense to me!  I wanted to be aerobically fit, and I also wanted to be strong- before this I had jogged down our country roads for a few miles most days, and then lifted weights most other days...

 

It did work, quite well in most ways, but (this is my pre-paleo days!), my diet was sub-standard, and I started getting lots of aches and pains.  My shoulders started aching from heavy bench presses (and other heavy lifts), and my knees and feet started hurting chronically as well from the running- remember, back then the running was “long and slow”- a perfect recipe for joint degeneration!

 

I also have a book by Steve Reeves, the classic era symmetrical bodybuilder, who came out with “Powerwalking” at about the same time!  Steve had come up with a similar program, using small hand weights to up the ante and exertion from walking, and they were both right on target.

 

Steve’s book emphasized fast walking, while swinging hand weights as you go.  Heavy Hands was more in depth, emphasizing the curling, and lifting of the weights more as you went, resulting in a real “Pan-Aerobic” exercise, as it was termed then.

 

Both are great concepts, but the Heavy Hands version wins out- you can mimic cross country skiing, arm and leg together walking exertion, and endless variations of multi-limbed exercise!  I’ve always done it, periodically, since it is such a satisfying and result producing way of exercise, but now I am back in a big way!

 

I love to do my virtual resistance exercises, where the muscle provides its own resistance- (much better than weights, which injure your joints long term)!  I do that each and every morning, along with stretching and calisthenics and then rebounding, right in front of my television... very relaxing and energizing!

 

My weights I have relegated to weighing down my tractor for increased traction, since I believe they create more harm than good in the long run.  Besides, bodyweight training yields actually better results!

 

But, each afternoon, I look forward to getting out my old heavy hands weights and handles, and walk down my forest paths pumping the weights in curls, and mimicking cross country motions, punching, pressing, and other motions that add to my walking exertion and spread it over my whole musculature. 

 

It is like running with my whole body!

 

I love to sprint barefoot, and do in the warmer months every week, usually on Sundays. (It brings me back to my childhood, and burns fat faster than anything else, while strengthening my feet, and grounding me to mother earth at the same time).

 

But when I pick up my little dumbells (8 lbs is about perfect for me) and walk down my forest trail, curling my arms alternately with each step, I realize that this is total body barefoot sprinting.  Every part of my body is working at a high level of effort, but ironically- the perceived exertion level, i.e. the level of discomfort is markedly reduced!!

 

It is really hard exertion, but because it is spread across all the limbs (not just the legs) it seems much easier.

 

So, I can do it daily.  I can do it barefoot. (Although, since it is getting colder here in Wisconsin I have started to wear my moccasins, which are really just like barefoot shoes, just not so obnoxious as those Vibrams with the toes...)

 

AND it exercises my entire body, as I move about and enjoy Nature and enjoy the sunshine, fresh air, pollen and other aspects of “Forest Bathing”!

 

And so, my final point is this:

 

If you had to choose ONE single exercise to stay healthy and fit:

I would go along with Steve Reeves, and Leonard Schwartz.   Mr. Universe, and the psychiatrist.

 

Get some small dumb bells, pump them as you walk, and reap the benefits of Pan-Aerobics! 

 

Jog with your whole body.

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Paleo Quick tip of the day #88 Cook your paleo food slowly for fast results!

pqtd 88  Heat your food slowly

 

I don’t mean all the time now, no one likes a grilled steak or barbequed chicken or salmon more than me!  But, for those of you who work in an office, or work out of a vehicle (as I did for many, many years)-to get a highly nutritious meal in at work can be really hard, and quite expensive as well!

 

Restaurant meals are not ideal; even good restaurants that serve what would be paleo friendly types of meals like meats, veggies and salads almost always use bad vegetable oils like soy, canola, and sunflower.  This is pretty much a deal breaker for health, and for me, just driving to and from the place is a time waster leaving me very little time to eat and savor my food!

 

I have chanced upon the “hot logic mini” lunchbox, and it sounds wonderful- you just put in your food, let’s say meat and veggies, bring it to work (either your office cubicle or your truck), plug it in, and go about your business.  At lunch time, whether it is 2 hours later or 12- your food will be perfectly, slowly cooked! 

 

The nutrients will all be completely intact, since slow cooking is the very best form of cooking for health, and you don’t need to share an office microwave that is filthy, and that no one ever cleans (except maybe YOU!)...

 

That is my tip number one of Paleo Quick tip of the Day- here is number two:

 

Make yourself bone broth in a crock pot! 

 

This is actually crucial, right up there with getting yourself a Vitamix blender and making a daily paleo green smoothie to fortify your health and life with! 

 

The difference between bone broth and plain stock is in the length of time the bones are boiled.  A few hours, you have good product: stock.  This is what you can buy in the grocery store. 

 

Get a good grass fed beef marrow bone, like I did yesterday, and putting it in your crock pot for about 24 hours or longer...that is bone broth, and that is one of the very healthiest things you can put into your body, ever!!

 

Once a week is a good schedule to shoot for.  Just put your marrow bone (I’ve found that marrow is even better than a plain old soup bone, but both are good), into your crock pot, fill with water, and add a bit of Bragg’s apple cider vinegar in as well, along with a liberal amount of sea salt.

 

Then, just plug it in, and wait...

 

You can either just dip it out the next morning and drink it along with your morning coffee and smoothie, or else you can put it into Ball canning jars to store and heat up on a daily basis, 16 oz. at a time, OR- you can turn it into an instant soup!  That’s what I did today-

 

I added in about 4 oz. of beef stew meat, a pound of carrots, a large sliced onion, and a few sliced potatoes.  (Rice is also good). 

 

A couple of hours later, I had the best, tastiest, most nutritious soup in the world! 

 

Bone broth will literally restore your joints with its collagen and mineral-loaded nutrients, and simultaneously fortify your bones as well.  It is inexpensive, simple, easy, and highly effective.  It is very expensive to purchase, and hard to find, but very easy to make yourself!  One of the ultimate lessons of the paleo diet is that we need to learn to live more like our grandparents and great grandparent. 

 

Eat real food, prepared at home and obtained either by growing it yourself, or from local sources that do.  Steer clear of convenience foods and fast foods, and be like the tortoise.

 

Slow and steady wins the race, every time!

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Paleo Quick Tip of the Day 87- Your water is slowly poisoning you!

pqtd 87 Your water is poisoning you Here is the thing- your water is probably poisoning you, slowly but surely! Unless you have a good source of well water on your property, that is free from farmer fields runoffs of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, you are dependent upon city water. This is water that your city or town has come up with a plan to treat, whether it comes from a municipal well or from a large, polluted lake (like in Chicago!). And when I mean “treat” your water, I mean that they dose it with chorine, fluoride, and the recently added Chloramines, which are a combination of chlorine and ammonia. Chloramines, now being added to nearly all municipal water, are so strong that they can dissolve your very pipes and fixtures, and release heavy metals into your water. Lots of problems here! Fluoride is particularly troublesome, and something I really hate being purposefully put INTO our water supply! It is supposed to prevent tooth decay, but like the flu shot, and the low fat high carb diet, there is absolutely NO SCIENTIFIC BACKING TO THESE CLAIMS! And the downside is really bad. It can effect your thyroid, cause “fluorosis”, which is an unsightly discoloration on your teeth, affect your bones as well, and make you more prone to cancers, dementia, bone fractures and arthritis. Believe me, this is only the tip of the iceberg here... ONLY the USA puts this poison fluoride purposely into their water, of all developed countries! It really has no positive effect on dental health, despite the hype, Now, if you are like me, this makes you physically sick to hear this stuff, and you want pure water! Understandable. The most important thing to get, though, is not a drinking water filter, it is a shower filter. I know, sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But it is true: Chlorine is a very strong disinfectant, and so can cause a lot of toxic issues for humans. Like an increased risk of kidney, rectal, and bladder cancers! Asthma, and a general weakening of the immune system are other high risks of chlorine exposure. Ironically, breathing in this chlorine, while bathing or showering, is dramatically worse than drinking it! So, for a “most bang for your buck” type of approach, get a shower filter that filters out this chlorine. Vitamin C works well for reducing chlorine, and so a Vitamin C shower filter is a great option. In addition, this type of filter also removes chloramines, which are even more damaging to your health! There are also some excellent whole house chlorine filters, but these start at around $1500 or so. Best bang for the buck is definitely a Vitamin C shower filter- you can pick one up on Amazon for around $60. You also get refills of Vitamin C in replaceable canisters, and then you will really be protecting the health of yourself and your family! Personally, I have well water, and so have a reliable source of pure, untainted water. But if you rely on city water, get yourself a filter! And to neutralize fluoride in the water that you drink, get yourself a Berkey type of carbon block filter. This type of filter is so powerful that it can purify water from any random stream, and make it pure and chemical, sediment, and bacteria free! A great health, and a great preparedness tool.

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Paleo Quick Tip of the Day 86

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good (Voltaire) It is so easy to get caught up in “perfection”- not in actually being perfect, which is actually impossible, but in the idea that you need to strive to be perfect. We all want to be as good as we can be, but perfection is impossible on this earth, and to know that is rather... freeing, really! As the ancient Greeks said “ Nothing in excess”. To tie this in with pursuing Paleo health, think about this: 80% of your results in anything result from only 20% of your effort! And so, to sum up: “Don’t sweat the small stuff!!” You want to be healthier, fitter, slimmer? Simple. Don’t fret about minutia; “Oh, I need to limit my carbs, I can’t eat one oz. of sugar, fruit is really bad, and I didn’t work out long enough today I can’t have a banana!” Wrong. “Well, I didn’t eat any bread this week. No wheat at all! And I ate a salad each day, and a green Paleo smoothie each morning- And I worked out every day in front of the television doing Perfectly Paleo Exercise, like pushups, straight legged sit ups, virtual resistance, 10 minutes or so of rebounding, and some stretching for a total of 20 minutes or so per day.” Well, I am here to tell you that this person, (Let’s call him Ron), who just eliminated wheat, drank a green smoothie for breakfast and ate a salad (hopefully with a protein source atop like chicken, beef, or tuna), has achieved at least 80% of his paleolithic health potential! If Ron continues like this, just getting into a routine, he will have amazing results! He will lose tons of body fat, and gain muscle, slowly and steadily. He will also, importantly, be building his tendon and ligament strength along with just muscle. This is the type of strength that has real world implications, allowing you to build a Bruce Lee type of strength, using the visceral strength of the fascia, the connective envelope of the body to build true, real world strength and imperviousness to injury! Later, Ron can add in meditation, forest bathing, and other “tweaks” of health and wellness... But really, this is all he needs: he is on his way, with just these simple modifications to his lifestyle! Then, let’s consider Rhonda: Rhonda is convinced that perfection is so important! She wants to be PERFECT! And so, she strives to remove every single non “paleo” diet item from her menu. NO beans; not even ONE in her grass fed beef chili- NO dairy, not even pastured dairy! And, above all, since she wants to be as lean and mean as possible- no carbs at all!! Ketogenic! All this, and Rhonda has no health problems at all, and just wants to be as lean as possible, (health is just a side issue for her). She wakes up at 4:30 AM each morning, works out on a treadmill, and then lifts weights at a nearby gym... rushes home, and then gets her kids ready for school, giving them a nutritious breakfast of greens and sardines, which they don’t touch. Her husband leaves early, and stops at Mc Donalds, which he never mentions. Then, she goes to work, where she has a desk job where she has a standing, treadmill desk! She walks on it all day, and has a perfect paleo lunch. After work, she gives her lucky paleo kids a snack at home of coconut oil spread on sardines, which they throw in the garbage when she leaves to start her cardio! They retreat to the family room where their dad has smuggled in pizza for them to eat. Dad reads the kids stories in bed, but Rhonda the mom needs to “bone up” on the paleo diet, and makes some notes about how she should probably start adding sauerkraut to the kid’s sardines in the morning... When Rhonda comes to bed, her husband is snoring away, and has been for hours- Rhonda looks at the clock on the nightstand, and realizes she only has 4 & 1/2 hours till she needs to get up. “Well, I need to get in my hour and a half workout tomorrow, so that will be perfect!” And so it goes... You know what? Ron will have much, much better results than Sarah! I know, he is only doing 20% as much as she does, he is actually quite relaxed and having a good time, but he is not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The bottom line is this: only do what is most important; concentrate on that, and let everything else take care of itself! Do NOT be a micromanager! Of yourself, or of anyone else!! It really, really, NEVER WORKS!! EVER!!! As Confucius said “"Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without." Don’t be a pebble.

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Don't eat Industrial Seed Oils Dude!

pqtd 85  Don’t eat Industrial Vegetable oils

 

This is a key point of paleo health that is often sidelined.  I mean, we all know that avoiding grains is key, but what is so bad about some clear looking oil that is labeled “heart-healthy” by every doctor and government health agency?

 

Well, first of all, almost every doctor and government agency is not your friend- they have an agenda; the doctor is an agent of large medical establishments that want your (and your insurance companies) MONEY, first and foremost.  Besides, they have been trained by pharmaceutical company funded college programs, and all they know is drugs and surgeries- they know next to nothing about nutrition, unless they taught it to themselves.  (Most pooh pooh nutrition altogether)

 

And the Government Agencies?  They also have an agenda, and it is not to help you, the taxpayer...

 

They want to sell farm products, America’s biggest export, and your health is probably better for them if you are NOT healthy!  The less social security payouts they have to make, the better.  They don’t want a lot of old seniors around, sucking up money that they (the government) could spend so much better than you can!)  Ha Ha.

 

Back to vegetable oils.  Corn, soy, cottonseed, sunflower, and safflower oils are very high in omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, which cause oxidative damage and inflammation, which dramatically raise the risk of heart disease!  It is very important to avoid these fake, industrial, unnatural fats!!

 

Unfortunately, almost anything that you buy in a supermarket that is packaged uses these cheap, industrial oils.  And, if you go to almost any mainstream restaurant, these vegetable oils are what they use.  

 

If you normally eat at home, and use real, natural, God made fats like butter, animal fats like lard, and coconut oil, you are building your health daily, particularly your heart health!  Despite what we’ve been lied to about for decades, natural, saturated fat is incredibly healthy! 

 

But if you eat out in restaurants, know that they almost ALL use bad, industrial seed or vegetable oils.  And so, it is important to eat out only occasionally, since these oils are really bad on a regular basis!  Even if you always order “paleo friendly” meals like meats and veggies, they will be cooked in bad oils.  

 

Salads are great, but if you get them at a restaurant: the dressings are almost certainly industrial seed oils. It’s kind of sickening, really; back in the 1950’s and 60’s, everything was cooked in natural lard or coconut oil, maybe butter.  I think that is why the WW2 generation is so long lived, they had really good food for the first half of their lives!  (My own father, Phil, is still going strong, living at home with my mother Carolyn, and he is 95!)

 

Then, after Ancel Keyes and the stupid Mc Govern commission decided that fat was the villain; well, our national health has been on a huge tailspin since then.  So, ignore them and eat real fat.

 

Try to avoid fake, industrial vegetable oils as much as possible- eat at home most of the time, and eat real food (and real fat).  If you go out to eat, and they offer sauces like hollandaise or others, pass.  They are undoubtedly soy oil based!  

 

Just remember that these oils, although they kind of go “under the radar” since they are largely invisible, are really important. Bad, vegetable seed oils are like water in the gas tank, or a nail in the tire to the paleo diet- small things that seem beneath notice, but they are truly devastating to your health!  

 

If you want a truly good oil, then just get a big bottle of cod liver oil, and put it in your daily Paleo Green Smoothie!  Now that is an oil I can swear by!!

 

 

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