Image: CyberMed, LLC
"Euphoria, of course, isn’t something you can summon at will. It doesn’t lend itself to a handy checklist. In fact, it most often catches us unaware. Nonetheless, we can cultivate a mindset and lifestyle conducive to euphoria – one that seeks adventure, values awe, and relishes discovery."
Mark Sisson
Learn more here.
Americans are throwing away 40 percent of food in the U.S., the equivalent of $165 billion in uneaten food each year, according to a new analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council. In a time of drought and skyrocketing food NRDprices, NRDC outlines opportunities to reduce wasted food and money on the farm, in the grocery store and at home.
Learn more at NRDC
In a recent post, I commented on the multi-institutional research study, published in the July 25 of Plos ONE, that challenges conventional wisdom on the role of an active lifestyle in preventing obesity. Anthropologist and the lead author Herman Pontzer discuss the study in The New York Times article Debunking the Hunter-Gatherer Workout:
The World Health Organization, in discussing the root causes of obesity, has cited a “decrease in physical activity due to the increasingly sedentary nature of many forms of work, changing modes of transportation and increasing urbanization.”
This is a nice theory. But is it true? To find out, my colleagues and I recently measured daily energy expenditure among the Hadza people of Tanzania, one of the few remaining populations of traditional hunter-gatherers. Would the Hadza, whose basic way of life is so similar to that of our distant ancestors, expend more energy than we do?
The short answer: no. The study, while adding some subtle complexity to the role of physical activity, strongly points to the nutritionaly deficient Western diet as the primary cause of the obesity epidemic:
All of this means that if we want to end obesity, we need to focus on our diet and reduce the number of calories we eat, particularly the sugars our primate brains have evolved to love. We’re getting fat because we eat too much, not because we’re sedentary.
I would add: we eat too much of the wrong things. It is much harder to overeat when the diet consists of lean meats, fish, vegetables, fruits, nuts and berries, and contains, minimal, if any, grains, refined sugars, or dairy. While physical activity is important to great health, its major role is improving cardiovascular, neurological, and musculoskeletal health rather than reducing weight.
Physical activity is very important for maintaining physical and mental health, but we aren’t going to Jazzercise our way out of the obesity epidemic.
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Shelby Malterr does a nice job on the Paleo rationale.
Via Indy Style TV: Paleo Food Truck
I no longer use my C-PAP machine, and I feel like a teenager again. All of my health issues are gone! I feel like I have a new lease on life. I look forward to every morning and cherish every day. Because honestly, when I was at my worst I didn’t know how many days I had left. We now have a second child, and I am able to play with them as much as I want, roll on the floor with them, and just be there for them. I truly have a life I never thought possible. I went from feeling like I was dying every minute of every day, to living the life I have always dreamed! It is truly a gift that I cherish every day.
"Picture a baseball player on steroids," Meehl goes on. "This baseball player steps up to the plates and hits a home run. It's impossible to say if he hit that home run because of the steroids, or whether he would have hit it anyway. The drugs just made it more likely."
It's the same with the weather, Meehl says. Greenhouse gasses are the steroids of the climate system. "By adding just a little bit more carbon dioxide to the climate, it makes things a little bit warmer and shifts the odds toward these more extreme events," he says. "What was once a rare event will become less rare.
Peter Miller quoting Gerald Meehl from the National Center for Atmospheric Research
Weather Gone Wild
National Geographic, September 2012, print edition
Intermittent foot paths allow passage through the "dreaded willows." Bierstadt's peak, in the upper right, as seen in the morning light.
On Saturday August 21, my wife and two of my sons and I hiked 14,060 ft. Mt. Bierstadt. For my wife and my youngest son, the goal was their first 14er. For my oldest son, his third ascent up Bierstadt, it was to support us while enjoying the outdoors and physical activity. My first climb of Bierstadt (also with my oldest son) was in August 2010, just one month before a cycling crash down Squaw Pass. Thus, my prime motivation was to see if I was back to baseline and could climb it again.
Nearby lake on left side of trail.
Hiking together at the higher altitudes.
Taking a break before the final push. People on the summit are barely seen as faint linear images on crest in the right upper corner.
View from the other side of the mountain.
At the summit.
The path down. The parking lot is beyond the lake seen in the left upper quadrant.
There may be another reason for the adults to climb, recently expressed nicely by Mark Sisson:
The comfortable plateau we’ve achieved – with all good intention – can seem less satisfying. Where did the peaks of life go? Do we make space for exuberance or adventure anymore? In seeking to live vitally, we inherently value more than the necessities of survival, more than the elements of comfort. It’s a mark of thriving, I think, to test the scale and dimension of existence – in whatever way fulfills us personally. We can choose to prioritize the role of awe, adventure, and uncertainty in our lives. The fact is, the power of intermittent euphoria (IE) can fill a deep – and deeply human – well.
Obesity (a BMI of 30 or more) increases problems with memory and thinking, a condition also known as cognitive decline. Pauline Anderson, writing for Medscape Neurology MedPulseNews, notes:
It has been known for some time that obese patients face relatively fast cognitive decline, but recent research has suggested that if such patients are metabolically healthy, either naturally or through the use of medications, they may escape some adverse health effects…
However, a new study published in the August 21 issue of Neurology shows otherwise. While cognitive decline occurs faster in those with metabolic abnormalities such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol, the decline in cognitive function 10 years following baseline assessments were similar in the metabolically normal and abnormal groups. Anderson quotes study author Dr. Archana Singh-Manoux:
We know that lower BMI is protective; that if your BMI is under 25, you have the slowest cognitive decline. So lower BMI is a good idea, but this notion that you can have a high BMI, and if your metabolic health is good, you'd be okay doesn't seem to be supported in our paper.
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Diane continues to inspire people to good health through her podcasts and now with her new book, Practical Paleo, which releases today, August, 7th. After you read this review, I think you will want to mosey on over to Amazon and get your own copy.
When you’re sitting around, you heart is pumping about five quarts of blood a minute, and if you run up the stairs or hard or push yourself physically, it can go up 35 or 40 quarts a minute. If you go and run for 26 miles, or do a full-distance triathalon, it completely overtaxes the heart. The heart is pumping 25 quarts a minute for hours and hours, and that starts to cause muscle fibers to tear, which leads to a bump in troponin and other enzymes associated with inflammation, and it causes the death of some muscle cells in the heart.
Dr. James O’Keefe
Time Healthland
In the spring of 2011, the Mississippi River swelled to historic levels, rising out of its banks, rolling across a wide flood plain, and eating at flood barriers. The story in 2012 could not be more different: the river has reached record-low levels in places.
Image: Not So Fast!
Not So Fast! is the first Paleo & Primal friendly fast food truck in San Diego, California offering local and pastured meats & eggs, wild caught seafood, and vegetables & fruit.
found via San Diego Reader
Earlier this summer, Steve Phinney and Jeff Volek, authors of The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance, headed to theWestern States 100-mile Endurance Run, to study how runners in this grueling race fared, literally, for they were checking how the athletes performed, AND how they ate. Steve Phinney says that more and more endurance athletes are choosing low-carb, high-fat. They’re choosing this diet both to get over digestive problems that hit in such a demanding event, and to win the race, and win it BIG! That’s what Tim Olson did this year. A self-proclaimed low-carb eater, Tim won the race — with a record-breaking pace.
Shelley
Me & My Diabetes
More importantly, I’ve noticed that a lot of nuisance health issues that I had attributed to aging and/or had for so long that I accepted them as “normal,” are gone. To name just a few, the achy shins and joints, compliments of power walking (I read that it was easier on the joints than jogging, lol!), are no longer achy. I no longer feel like I am going to pass out if I don’t have breakfast within the first 30 minutes after I wake up. I no longer need to constantly pack snacks for my mid-morning and mid-afternoon hunger pangs/shakes. I no longer get in a foul mood when I’m hungry. I don’t drink anywhere near the amounts of water I drank regularly when I was constantly fighting dehydration, nor have I had a need to drink Gatorade. I have more energy than ever ...
Mark's Daily Apple
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / NPR
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 31.3% of American's grocery money went to buy meats in 1982. Thirty years later, the percentage has dropped by a third. The up and comer? Processed foods and sweets!
This is the long-term scenario: more processed foods lead to more chronic diseases, which lead to greater healthcare expenditures that lead to less U.S. global competitiveness.
The time is now for ancestral nutrition.