Intermittent Fasting

I've been thinking about whether I should conclude the Foundations series with Intermittent Fasting or leave it at Food, Exercise and The Three S's.  As much as I believe in Intermittent Fasting for health and beyond, it's not truly essential and I will therefore let it stand on it's own.

We all Intermittently Fast whether we like it or not.  The time between your meals, and in particular from your last meal of the day until your first one the next day, is technically a Fast.   Your body uses this time to fully digest and utilize the nutrients from the food you've consumed.  If you don't give yourself enough time between meals to accomplish this basic task, you'll fall behind on other important things such as repair and removal of unwanted cellular material (Autophagy).  This is where Intermittent Fasting (IF'ing) comes in.  It's essentially a tool that gives your body a chance to sort things out properly and deliver a shot in the arm to your immune system in the process.

My Breakfast yesterday

Many people have a knee jerk reaction to the idea of Fasting.  You hear things like ... 'But I don't want my body to think it's starving and hold onto fat'  or  'If I don't eat every few hours my blood sugar will tank and I'll flop around like a wet mop'  or my fave 'breakfast is the most important meal of the day'.  If any of these were the case, the human race would not have made it this far and we wouldn't even be here having this discussion.  Our ancestors ate what they could, when they could.  What they ate was totally dependent on animal and plant availability where they were currently living.  And when they ate was a matter of whenever they could get their hands on anything edible.  I don't think I'll stretch your imagination to have you believe that most of the time they likely didn't have three squares a day.  Maybe sometimes they did.  But I'd bet more often than not, their eating schedule was very erratic.  Something we could possibly term as Random Intermittent Fasting.  I imagine this is the way it was for a long, long time.  Not until the agricultural revolution and the rise of civilization did we begin to have enough food to even think about consuming it on a regular, scheduled basis.

Does this mean that if you don't implement some IF'ing into your lifestyle you're screwed?  No.  Plenty of people don't make a habit of it and do just fine.  I personally use it because I think it has some serious potential upside for health and longevity and little, or no, downside.  If you think you might want to give this technique a try, there are a number of different ways to go about it.  I'm going to list a few methods, but I don't think any one way is better than the rest.  Ultimately, the best method is the one that is the most comfortable and sustainable for you personally.

Random IF'ing.  Going without food whenever you feel like it.  Skipping a meal here and there.  Skipping food for a whole day now and then.  Mixing it up.  Our genes are probably wired up for this method as a result of our ancestors eating habits.  And as fortune would have it, random fasting probably fits right in with most people's unpredictable, hectic schedules.

Daily IF'ing.  Having an 'eating window' each day.  A 16 hour fast followed by a 8 hour window is popular.  I'd say anywhere from a 16 to 20 hour fast each day would be ideal.  If you're more active, lean toward the 16 hours, if not so much, 18 to 20 might work better for you.  There are even some people who like to eat only one large meal every 24 hours.

My Breakfast today

Weekly IF'ing.  Fasting for a 24 hour period once a week.

Monthly IF'ing.  Fasting for a 36 to 48 hour period once a month. 

There are many more ways to try this stuff.  For instance, you could do Daily IF'ing during the week and then eat three squares on the weekends.  Or you could do the Random option while also incorporating Monthly IF'ing.   I do want to mention here that with Intermittent Fasting, I'm not talking about going 72 hours or more without food.  I would call that straight up Fasting.  Perhaps this type of long Fasting serves a purpose in some situations, but I don't think it's anything you would want to do on a regular basis.

I've personally been doing the Daily IF'ing protocol for over two years now.  I eat two large meals a day, starting my eating window at noon and finishing my evening meal between 6:30 and 7.  If I'm out with friends and end up eating later, or for some reason I need to have lunch at 11:30 ... I don't sweat it.  I just resume my regular timing the next day.  Giving up breakfast has been a wonderful thing for me.  As Forest Gump said 'It's one less thing I have to worry about'.  It's that simple.

My Breakfast tomorrow

Back in my chronic cardio days I was in the 'eat every two to three hours' camp.  Gotta keep fueling those muscles you know.  This is partly why I ate so many energy bars.  With so many mini meals a day, I didn't exactly have enough time to prepare all of my food from scratch.  Looking back, it was mentally draining to be thinking about eating all of the time.  What to eat for Breakfast?  Before training?  During training?  Post workout?  Lunch?  Snack?  Dinner?  Geeesh.  When I first made the switch, I was worried about performance drop off and losing muscle mass, especially since I would be (and still am) training in a fasted state in the mornings.  Well, no such thing happened.  If anything, I have more energy and focus in the mornings with an empty stomach.  Instead of me going into the specifics of why this is the case, I'll let a professional handle this one.  Martin Berkhan has a site called leangains where pretty much all he does is dismantle the notion that Intermittent Fasting will shrivel you up into a shell of your former self.  And quite the opposite, you can easily gain muscle this way - if that's your goal.

So let me sum it up.  Intermittent Fasting is a powerful tool you can use to improve your overall health.  It's gives your body a chance to recharge your immune system and clear out some of the junk in your cells.  You can do it daily, sparingly, or not at all.  It's works well for some people and is just too much trouble for others. And it won't sap your energy or shrink your muscles.

As with anything new, if you try Intermittent Fasting for the first time, you can expect your body to encounter a learning curve.  When I first ditched breakfast, I was hungry when lunch rolled around.  This happened for a week or so, but faded quickly.  I think hunger is something most people don't truly experience very often ... usually they eat just because 'it's time'.  Anyways, have fun with it and remember it's just a tool.  A very powerful tool.

Foundations - The Three S's

 Sleep, Stress, Sunshine

Continuing with the foundations of a solid Primal lifestyle we come to the three S's.  Unlike the first two foundations of Food and Exercise, I think there is less controversy about the nuts and bolts of how to optimize our levels of sleep, stress and sunshine.  However, like the first two foundations, each person will have to find what works best for them and their situation.  Notice a theme here?

Plenty of Sun today in Aspen

Most people recognize how important these three things are in their lives.  Getting plenty of sleep, reducing your stress and optimizing sunshine are, well, foundations of good health.  The tricky part is finding the time and putting forth the effort to make them happen.  Here are some of the way's I go about it:

Sleep.  Ah, one of my favorite things!  I love sleep.  And I'm good at it.  We should all get plenty of sleep and wake up only when we're good and rested.  We should go to bed by 10 and sleep in a pitch black room.  We should turn off our electrical devices early, leaving us plenty of time to unwind and think about the day that happened and plan for the day ahead.  And then there is reality.

I think the idea of sleeping in a very dark room is sound advice.  If you can make it happen, do it.  Below is a pic of my homemade setup that I've rigged to shut out most of the light.  With the ring method I came up with it's not much work to put them up every night, but real black out shades/blinds would be easier.  I also usually wear an eye mask to bed (I use a spandex cycling headband as I don't like the thickness of real eye masks) and I think this is the real secret.  We want to minimize the light on our retina's, as well as on the rest of our body, to start melatonin production and enter the sleep cycle.   Since I actually sleep under my covers, most of my body doesn't get exposed to light even if I didn't use window shading.   So while total darkness is ideal, a good eye mask goes a long way ... and it's perfect for when you travel.

Nice look huh?

But real easy to do

I also wear earplugs when I sleep.  I started this a few years back when I had some noisy neighbors.  The neighbors are gone, but I've enjoyed the quiet so much that I won't give up the plugs.  I don't consider these essential, and for most people they're not practical, but silence is truly golden.

As a result of wearing earplugs I discovered what I believe to be the second most important thing for sleep, after the eye mask.  A vibrating alarm watch.  I'll never set an electronic alarm again.  Waking up to the piercing sound of one of those things just gets you up on the wrong side of the bed.  Vibrating alarm watches are very effective, relatively cheap, and not surprisingly, made with deaf people in mind.

Stress.  Having a type B personality, my internal stress levels are generally pretty low.  On top of that, I don't have a stressful job and I'm single.   At a restaurant I once worked at, in the middle of a crazy shift, the owner/executive Chef pulled me aside and said 'if we could just bottle your temperament and spread it around'.  Stress is not a problem for me personally. 

I suppose the previous article that I wrote What Matters? is relevant here.  Take a step back when you're feeling stressed and put things in perspective.  I know ... that's not exactly ground breaking stuff.  Try this instead ... throughout the day, and especially when you go to bed, consciously relax your facial muscles.  Really relax them.  I'm not going to theorize as to why this seems to work so well, but it's so simple and effective that you should at least give it a whirl.

Yoga. Tai Chi. Puzzles. Meditation.  Popping your boss across the smacker with a left hook.  These are other things you can try if your stress level is out of control.  I'm not saying that someone who is Type A should strive to become a Type B person, they should just try to reduce their overall stress.  Being stressed out all of the time will sabotage all of the other positive lifestyle changes you make on your journey to becoming healthier.   Remember, this Primal/Paleo thing isn't a diet or exercise plan, rather, it's a template for better living all the way around.  Getting your stress levels under control is big part of that.

Sunshine.  With all of the current Sun-phobia out there, optimizing Sun time is probably a little more controversial than the first two S's.  However, I think it's becoming apparent from current research just how important having good levels of vitamin D is for our health.  And absolutely the best way to get vitamin D is by exposing your skin to the Sun.  Don't burn yourself, but also don't err on the complete other side and never get any Sun at all.  It's all about balance. 

How much is too much?  How much is enough?  Lots of variables will determine what you need.  The way to know for sure is to have your Vitamin D levels checked.  Then adjust your outside time accordingly and perhaps supplement in the winter. 

I also recommend against using sunscreen in most cases.  Your skin is the largest organ of your body and absorbs whatever you slather onto it.  Sunscreens usually have a nasty list of ingredients you don't exactly want to be soaking up on a regular basis.  Now having said that, using sunscreen is better than getting a burn.  But if you find yourself needing to use it too often, consider changing your habits. 

The Sun is pretty intense up here in the Rocky Mountains.  In the Summer I wear a very breathable long sleeve shirt when I'm out walking and take it off only for a short time to soak in the rays.  I slowly increase the time I go shirtless throughout the season.  And usually in October sometime, I start taking Vitamin D supplements. 

Sleep, Stress, and Sunshine.  It's all about optimizing.

Foundations - Exercise II

As I mentioned in the previous article, moving around a lot and working hard physically are the foundations for an active body.  There are many different ways to accomplish these things, and many ways to make them so much harder than they need to be.

My Sprints yesterday.  Yeah, it was cold.

Here is my story:
I currently do a few short, intense bouts of exercise a week, along with some walking and lots of moving around ( I'm on my feet all day at work).  I do mostly body weight exercises and sprints.  But this has not always been the case.

From the time I was 18 until a few years ago, I was a chronic cardio athlete.  Cycling and running were my passions.  In my early 20's I put in a fair share of miles and raced now and then, but I wouldn't say I was over the top.  Then I moved to Aspen.  People's idea of exercise here is not normal.  I see that now, but I quickly fell into the trap and became one of 'them'.  What most would consider an 'Epic' would be just a routine outing for locals here.  Seriously, it's pretty nuts.  But who can blame us with the incredible mountain scenery and beautiful Colorado weather?  Maybe it's the lack of oxygen at 8000', but for years and years I defined myself by what cardio training I was doing.  I would be chomping at the bit to get out of work and go exercise.  It was an addiction.  An addiction that required lots of fuel from food to sustain.  And like most athletes, my food choices were not exactly made with health first in mind.

When I finally convinced myself that I needed to make some nutritional changes, I knew I had to change my activity level as well.  Turns out what I needed the most was to just drop the excessive cardio miles.  With a light manual labor job and a weekly weightlifting session in addition to the cardio, I was just flat out doing too much activity.  This slow beat down of my body was coming to an end.  I now only run or ride when I really feel like it (maybe 15 times this summer) and instead concentrate on working out in a much more efficient, effective, and safe manner.

Lifting.  I've been lifting weights at gyms for over 15 years, having tried all kinds of different protocols and splits.  Two years ago I gave up my expensive gym membership and started hitting the local playgrounds for my workouts.  Using my body weight, and sometimes adding a backpack full of weights, I've found that these places are a goldmine for fun and fitness.  I mainly do pull ups, chin ups, push ups, dips and presses, but there is so much to explore and play with if you just set your imagination free.  This video is exactly what I'm talking about.

After finishing my workout one day I was just looking at those bars and decided to 'swing' across them and see what I felt.  Turns out it's quite a bicep and back burner.  Especially if you add some weights.  I'll post more on my playground workouts in the future, but as the cold has set in here, I'm currently lifting inside my apartment.  Below are a few pics from my workout today.  As you can see, I have a pull up bar that breaks down when not in use (I'll do a review of this piece of equipment sometime).  I only had it at half height today and used the Grid roller to assist with super slow movements.  It's just something I came up with.  I'll probably do a post more specifically on my indoor workouts too.  Geesh  ... lots of promises for future posts. 

Sprints.  Right now I do running sprints twice a week.  If you're not into running fast, you could certainly try swimming or cycling sprints.  I sprint all out for 15 to 20 seconds, 6 times, with a couple of minutes to recover between each burst.  Some people prefer to do 30 second intervals with less recovery time.  And still others like to mix and match intensity and duration.  Whatever floats your boat.

Indoor workout

Sprinting hard, but not necessarily at 100% maximum effort, is essential.  The reason for this is that you want  to 'drain your tank'.  Your glycogen tank that is.  Working very hard for short durations accomplishes this wonderfully.  You do not completely deplete the glycogen stores in your muscles, but the goal is to get your body to draw down on these reserves occasionally.  In this regard, sprinting offers an incredible bang for your buck.

I would caution people to slowly increase the intensity level with their sprinting.  If you pay close attention to your body, you can build up to sprinting very hard while at the same time minimizing your injury potential.
This is getting a little long and I still have more to add.  I suppose I should just do an in depth article on sprinting sometime too.

Foundations - Exercise

Perhaps it's hard for people to agree on what foods are healthy,  but surely we can all agree that exercise is good.  Just make sure you get plenty of it ... right?  Wellllll.

As with nutrition, there are a myriad of different opinions out there as to what an optimal exercise routine looks like.  And also as with nutrition, there are simply too many variables and too much differentiation among the population for a one size fits all approach.  However, I do believe there are some core principles that form the base of a solid exercise platform, and lifestyle in general.

My Niece running

• Move around more often than not
• Work hard physically once in awhile

and do these in a context that is:

• Effective
• Efficient
• Safe

Really, I think things can be boiled down that easily.  Of course it's up to you to choose the details and decide how to implement them into your own life.  I'm going to go into more depth below, but seriously,  just look at those bullet points above and chew on their simplicity.

Move around more often than not.  This should not come as a surprise.  Being active is a no brainer.  What I'm peddling here, however, is your total time moving throughout the day.  If you have a sit down job, sit down for lunch, sit in your car or the bus on your commute, sit down for dinner and then sit on the couch to watch the tube in the evening ... Wellllll.  In this scenario, even if you manged to work in a 45 minute walk a few days a week and some heavy lifting -  you're still behind the 8 ball.  Take a look at your body.  Whether you believe we were designed or have evolved, we are clearly not meant to sit down for the majority of the day.

And no, running or chronic cardio in general will not put some non-linear dent into sit time.  That is, 2 hours of running does not negate 8 or 10 hours of sitting.  It doesn't work like that.  And besides, excessive cardio has drawbacks of it's own. 

So what do you do if you have a desk job and commute sitting down?  I don't have specific answers for you, but if it was me (and I don't fall into this category by the way) I would make sure the rest of my day was spent on my feet moving around.  Everyday, no matter what?  No.  I'm saying make it a goal to move more ... over the long haul of life.

Me at the playground

Work hard physically once in awhile.  This one is more situation dependent.  Working hard for a 70 year old woman will be different than working hard for a teenager.  The difference is not important.  What is important is that you work hard for you.  Bone crushing, puke on your shoes, see the white buffalo in the sky hard?  No.  Knock yourself out now and again if you are so inclined, but that level of intensity is not required.  And just like chronic cardio, this stuff has the potential to do more harm than good if overused.

Some obvious examples of working hard would be lifting weights, sprinting, body weight exercises, or say, building a brick wall with your bare hands.  What is the best way to work hard physically you ask?  Well ... as long as you work in a fashion that is effective, efficient, and safe, I would say pick your passion.

Effective.  Efficient.  Safe.  When going through your everyday life, and in particular when you exercise, you should ask yourself if these three things apply to whatever it is that you're doing.  They should.  Let me give you an example of a fail in this department.  A couple of years ago I gave up my gym membership and was finding new ways to work hard outside.  Playgrounds were my first find, and they are amazing.  But I wasn't satisfied.  Long story short, one day while holding a 60 pound rock above my head that I had just lifted off the ground, it dawned on me that this really wasn't that safe.  Actually, it was quite dangerous.  It also happened to be really effective and efficient, but you see, you need to have ALL three of these things at the same time.

This is why I'm in favor of slowing down rep speed and reducing the total weight when lifting.  Concentrating on muscular tension and fatigue (failure if you're more advanced) will bring about much the same physiological response as lifting very heavy weights, and in a much safer manner. 

In part II of this article I'll talk about my specific exercise journey and what I currently do for fun.

Foundations - Food II

Freezer full of meat

Of all of the information from the paleosphere that I was now immersing myself in, I think the most influential for me was the notion that, at best, grains do not offer us any nutrients that we cannot get from other places.  And far worse, that they are likely problematic for everybody in some scalar fashion.  The other thing that struck me was how pervasive seed oils are in the Standard American Diet.  They are literally everywhere you look.  And they, too, only have a downside as far as I can see.

As I transitioned into the Primal lifestyle I found myself eating less and less from these two big categories and then eventually eliminating them completely.  I don't have a date marked when total avoidance came, but it has been a few years by now.  Around this time I also began to do daily Intermittent Fasting and ditched breakfast.  I'll talk more about this in detail in a future foundations post.  So basically, I eat two large meals a day and have for quite some time.  It works well for me and my schedule.

I'm notorious for eating the same thing over and over.  While it's true I do have a few base foods for my two meals, they do in fact change over time.  Nonetheless, if you aren't actually me and just observe my foods for several weeks - things may look strange.  Like I've mentioned before, I like things simple and that's just how I roll.  Lots of people love trying out different recipes and various food combinations, and more power to them.

To break it down, I basically eat grass fed red meat, fish, sweet potatoes, veggies, eggs, yogurt, a few nuts and fruits, and dark chocolate.  I cook with coconut oil and butter, and use a bit of lemon juice now and again.  I think there is plenty of variety within these choices, especially when I mix in different spices and sea salt with my evening meal.

A couple of years ago I started to purchase meat from our Farmers Market in the summer and tried several different animals.  As Fall rolled around, I decided to purchase a quarter of a grass fed buffalo for my winter supply.  It worked out great.  If you can afford the up front cost and have the freezer space, this is a super deal.  In addition to getting a mix of cuts and ground meat, the Farmer will usually include livers, hearts, bones etc.  The buffalo guy threw in all of this stuff for free saying that they usually end up just feeding it to their dogs.  Lucky dogs!   This summer I purchased a quarter of a grass fed cow and topped it off with some ground buffalo and lamb to last me the winter. 

This pic on the left is what I had for lunch today.  I also had a banana and some dark chocolate later as I was still hungry.  My other lunch go to meal is sardines, a sweet potato, a couple of soft boiled eggs and some yogurt.  I almost always eat at noon.

Lunch

And the pic below was dinner.  That's a half pound of meat.  The cuts vary as I work my way through the quarter.  Usually I lightly fry the veggies in coconut oil and then add the meat.  Sometimes I use the slow cooker for tougher cuts.  I cook the eggs sunny side up and add them to the meat and veggie mix.  Copious amounts of grass fed butter always accompany the sweet potato.  The more the better.

Dinner

 
So that's the diet in a nutshell.  As I said, new things do get rotated in and out.  For awhile I was eating macadamia nuts a few times a week with lunch.  And before I was having so many sweet potatoes, I consumed more avocados.  I rarely go out to eat.  When I do, I usually go for a meat entree with either a potato or veggies.  If I have an appetizer or dessert that is not so much Paleo, I don't sweat it.  I think one of my secrets is that I really enjoy my meals and look forward to them everyday.  I don't have to think much about what I'm eating and consider my meals to be very nutrient dense.

Foundations - Food

I was just taking a walk and mulling over how to write a post about what food choices form the basis of a healthy diet.  Needless to say ... way, way too many thoughts went through my mind.  So many different opinions, so many different angles, so much information.  Not that I was entertaining any notion of writing the definitive guide on the subject or anything.  The best solution I can come up with is to point to two of the finest eating templates that I've yet encountered.  I am referring to Dr. Paul Jaminets' Perfect Health Diet and Dr. Kurt Harris' Archevore  plan.  They are both brief yet thorough.  While there is obviously no one optimal plan for everybody, I encourage those who are not familiar with these simple guides to take some time and look them over.

Okay now the easy part - I'll fill you in on my food choices and how they have evolved over the past few years.

I must start out by saying that I've never been overweight.  Not as a child, not as an adult.  Also, I've never really felt bad or noticed any dire consequences from my food choices.  I wanted to make this clear because there was never a tipping point (Mark Sisson, ironically, just did an article on this) that lead me to this lifestyle.  Actually, my background is a lot like Mark's in that I too was a chronic cardio athlete and made food choices to mainly fuel my activities (lots of grains and carbs in general).  Instead, I've long been interested in learning about nutrition, and the awesomeness that is the information superhighway has led me over time to make choices tilted more in favor of my overall health.

I would say this began in earnest after I read Good Calories Bad Calories by Taubes in the fall of '07.  I didn't automatically banish all carbs from my diet right then and there, but I remember vividly thinking over the saying 'to work up an appetite'.  That struck a chord with me.  I was doing this all of the time with my endurance running, cycling and skate skiing.   Now though, as I'm getting older, my brain is starting to win the battle with my body over making food choices.  Instead of making them to fuel my lifestyle, I make them with overall health as my number one objective.  And my lifestyle, and in particular my exercise patterns, have changed to match this goal as well.

So several years ago I began cutting back on the endurance training as well as the carbs in my diet.  The beautiful thing about this was that junk food was the first thing to go.  I'm talking mainly about energy bars and gels.  They are the backbone of chronic cardio training as they are fast and easy.  They are also almost pure sugar ... even if they are called natural or organic (date paste packs one helluva wallop).  I  started to prepare most of my meals for myself around this time too.  Not spending hours and hours training after work all of a sudden opened up some time for me to actually use my kitchen.  Instead of just grabbing sushi or a sandwich from the store, I was beginning to take the time to shop for fresh vegetable and meats - and the Farmers Market became my new best friend.  And so my Paleo/Primal journey was beginning to take shape and I would soon ditch the grains, legumes and seed oils from my diet as well.  In the next post I'll conclude with my current food choices and overall eating strategy.

Finding Information

My intent with this series, and with this blog in general, is to write down my experiences and thoughts about the Primal Lifestyle.  I'm going to start with a foundation series where I map out my journey with what I think are some of the basic tenets.  This first one is going to be about the FOOD.

I wanted to preface with the above paragraph because I would like to make clear that I do not intend to discuss or debate what is or is not exactly Paleo or Primal, or what the science tells us today, or what our ancestors did in regards to food and exercise.  All of this stuff is very relevant and necessary to consider, but there are so many others out there in the Paleosphere with way more brain power than I have that seem to find no lack of words on these topics.  I should know because I've been reading up on this subject everyday for years now.

Z Man

 Post break.  My friend just brought over her cat because he's not feeling so well.  Might be something in her apartment, so he's going to hang with me for the night.  That's him over there in the pic.  Okay, back to Paleo talk...

If you want in depth analysis and information about these ideas I highly recommend checking out the 'What I read' links and my blogroll on the sidebar.  All of these sites have jumps to other links that they in turn recommend, and some even have great books that they themselves have authored.  If your like me, you will read a few books and then settle in with some favorite sites and blogs that you reference frequently.

Information overload is easily possible.  But don't let this be an excuse to throw your hands up and say that there is too much to learn or that nobody agrees on what is healthy and what is not.  There is debate out there to be sure ... but you need to take in what information you can handle, decide what makes sense to you, and then apply the things that work for your current situation.  In the end, nobody can just tell you the exact path to leading a healthier life.  We're all different and our bodies respond in different ways.  You can hire people to help you make these choices, but I suspect that if your eyes are falling on these words then you have at least taken to some measure of gathering information for yourself.  Good on you for that!

Okay, this post has become more of a primer on how it's empowering to find health information, and how we need to make our own decisions with this knowledge.  So I guess I'll just finish with a though on this subject and then start talking about my experiences next time.

Part of what I dig about this Paleo/Primal movement is how bottom up it is.  There aren't any large corporations (or governments for that matter) that are involved yet.  If anything, these big guys are fighting against us because of our potential to take away from their bottom lines.  One way to look at it is that most of the people who are writing, reporting, analyzing, and sharing these ideas aren't getting rich from it - I'd say most aren't getting paid at all.  This lifestyle is spreading because it is relatively fun and easy to implement, and ends up working for a good lot of people.  A growing number of people out there are living proof.

What Matters?

I think I'll start off my blogging life by asking ... What matters?  We each need to ask ourselves this question every now and then to reevaluate what is important in our lives.  What was top priority a few years ago may not be so high on the list right now.  Stop and take a moment.  What matters?  Think about it before you go to bed tonight.  What matters?

The reason I keep asking this question is probably obvious.  Once you figure out what's important, then you may start the process of making things happen.  Now, I'm not actually asking you to list your goals, break them down into short term, long term, make a plan, blah, blah, blah.  This is not some sort of self help 'What Color is Your Parachute' type question.

Family.  Health.  Career.  Friends.  Security.  These are things that come to mind for me.  And one of the best ways I think we can enrich our lives is to act on what is important to us everyday.  Keeping the things that matter to you most in the forefront is truly helpful.

Another Paleo Blog

Here we go!

I know, I know ... another Paleo blog.  Just what the world needs right?  Well, don't get your knickers in a twist just yet.  This blog is mostly just for me.  Selfish huh?  I'm not much of a writer and I generally don't have much to say.  So there.  

Really, I'll just be using this platform to share my thoughts and experiences.  Mostly about the Paleo/Primal lifestyle.  I've actually been living this way for awhile now and have things pretty well nailed down in the food, fitness, sleep and stress categories.  At least for me I do.  Your  situation and results may be different than mine.  Actually, they had better be different than mine.  This whole deal is about finding what works best for YOU in terms of results and sustainability.