Update on Our Caveman Lifestyle

Nearly five months into primal living, and I am happy to report that it is still going better than we could have hoped.

We eat more whole foods than ever. My son has decided he now (usually) likes spinach, cucumbers, and all the soups, stews and chili I've been making. Our pantry is less cluttered. (No boxes, really, once you get rid of grains.)

Grocery bill ends up being about the same. (More spent on good quality meats and organic purchases, but less on advertising, since most bulk foods like nuts and raisins and fresh produce doesn't come from Big Food.) Also, since we snack less, we actually eat less, too.

Cooking is easy when I want it to be: Some fish with some lemon-garlic butter and sauteed veggies. When I want a showstopper, I can do that, too: Chile rellenos with chicken, cheese, pecans, raisins and lime sour cream, with a side of calabacitas con crema. Yummmmm.

Our energy levels are still sky high, which is my favorite part. (Well, that and the ability to not be hungry for hours on end--and therefore not be motivated nor distracted by food. Life is too short to spend it eating *all* the time!)

Exercise is less stressful than it's ever been. I walk or jog with the dog for 20 minutes once a day, and spend my usual time on my feet chasing my son around. Once a week or so, on Saturday or Sunday, we go to the park and do our sprints, which take all of 10-15 minutes, including resting between sets and chasing the little one. Then we are free to head to the playground or walk around the lake or do whatever we'd like to do as a family. I go to yoga most Sunday mornings. (Not that that's exercise for me--even if it is. It's my church.) Every other night or so, we do push-ups or squats or some other kind of bodyweight exercise, all in about 20 minutes or less. No more worrying about "getting enough exercise." We can do more, if we want, but we don't have to to stay lean. It's awesome.

Additionally, the way we're eating gives us enough energy to do intense bursts and build muscle. Thanks to my awesome "100 Push-Up" iPhone app, I just completed 100 push-ups, which I don't think I ever thought was possible. (It's broken up into sets with a 1-2 minute rest between them, but still!) I'm also well on my way to 200 sit-ups and 200 squats. 

As for weight, we have both lost quite a bit of body fat. I was a size 6-8, and now I'm in the 2-4-6 range. My husband, who had a bit more to lose, has lost enough (more than 24 pounds, and still losing) that he's had to buy new pants and his shirts are quite roomy! And he is continuing to lose body fat every day. His blood pressure, though, has gone way down, which makes me very happy. He's gone from the low end of "high" to the middle of totally normal!

My skin continues to improve. I think this is a sign of my hormones, which are still a bit wacky, balancing out. There's some possibility that losing body fat, which holds on to estrogen, could be responsible for things not being totally normal just yet. I'm going to be consulting with some health professionals soon on this, so we'll see what I find out there. 

As for temptations and cheats, it does happen. Mark Sisson, author of The Primal Blueprint, advocates an 80-20 approach, so that eating doesn't feel too restrictive, controlled or obsessive. I'd say we're doing 90-10. Corn is our biggest cheat, as we love Tex-Mex, so once in a while we'll have a corn tortilla enchilada, and maybe a taste of rice and beans. We've had pieces of cake--my son's birthday was recently--and while I really wanted to enjoy it, I just couldn't. I felt the buzzing of too-high blood sugar almost instantly, and it just made us feel poorly. It also was interesting how addicting it was; I wanted to eat more cake, despite knowing that it would make me feel junky. So we threw it out. We've found that wheat, combined with sugar, seems to be the very worst at making us feel bad.

My friend recently asked these questions in her comment to the post "Primal Bliss":

What I can't reconcile though, is what I know anecdotally about Atkins, which I know is not the same (the quality of this food sounds much higher) but seems fairly similar. I know lots of people who had success losing weight with Atkins, but no one who continued with it in the long-term (say two years or more) which of course led to regaining any weight lost. Of course, the same can be said of any style of eating for weight loss-- I can't think of anyone I know who has lost a large amount of weight on any plan, sensible or otherwise, and kept it off permanently. This my long-winded way of asking, is there something about this style of eating that can help one stick with it long-term? There's something unique about eating habits-- they die really, really hard.

She's right about eating habits, and her questions are good ones. My first thought is that there's something about coupling an eating plan to the science of ancestral health. Basically, if I understand intellectually why these things are good for my body or not, and I can look up the evidence myself, I'm more likely to be internally motivated to eat well. I think internal motivation is key. Someone telling you what you can and can't eat smacks of authority, against which nearly everyone eventually rebels. Further, without the strong cravings for the blood-sugar highs, the temptation to cheat plummets, making success much easier.

And I think another reason why this is working so well is that without the elevated levels of insulin numbing us to the effects of poor choices, we can get immediate feedback about how food affects our bodies. I know I feel better when I'm eating primally, and when I stray, it's like instant negative reinforcement. My body is more finely calibrated, and I'm more mindful, too.

While I'm happy I've lost weight, and thrilled that my husband has, I wasn't really in this 100 percent for weight loss. Mostly, I wanted to feel better, avoid blood sugar issues, and be in optimum health for a long time to come. I was motivated for higher reasons than vanity, which doesn't motivate people for very long, since being heavy or thin is not the source of real unhappiness or happiness. I just want health for myself and my family.

I don't know enough about Atkins to know why it (or any other eating plan) might fail, but I think one explanation of why "low-carb" and other diets don't work for some in the long term is that they allow wheat and grains, and demonize saturated and/or animal fat. Wheat is a powerful appetite stimulant, and where the carbs come from is just as, if not more, important as how many you have per day. Carbs from green veggies behave differently in your body than carbs from grains and sugars. I just read Gary Taubes' "Why We Get Fat, and What to Do About It." In it, he explains the biochemical mechanisms for fat storage, along with the history of obesity research and cures. I recommend reading it for the history alone, but knowing how insulin affects fat storage and metabolism is really important, too. (I've just started reading Dr. William Davis' "Wheat Belly" and that is full of great info, too, on the science of all this.)

Obviously, we've only been doing this about five months, so I can't know if we'll do this for the rest of our lives or not. But given everything we've experienced, we have no desire to change a thing, so we'll be eating this way for the foreseeable future. Only time will tell, of course, but I'll periodically share how we're all doing. I'll also mention that our success has motivated my husband's two brothers and his niece to go Primal, too, and so far the benefits they've experienced reflect our own experience. 

So, to sum up: This decision we've made is working out well, and I'm so glad we challenged conventional wisdom and struck out on this path a little over four months ago.

Peace and good health to you,
Tiffany

Who Do You Think You Are?

In my last post, I discussed the idea of someone finding your problem, your suffering, as pleasant. It’s a challenging notion to most of us, but, if you are going to accept it for one problem, I think you have to accept it for all of them.

Recently, I talked to a friend who seemed to be asking for help with her problems. She usually comes to me to get the hippy-dippy take on things. According to her, that’s my specialty, where she privileges reason and logic above all else. For the record, I actually am quite fond of logic and reason, when properly balanced with intuition and emotion.

Anyway, in discussing this idea with her, I brought up some examples of my own experiences of pain and suffering, like I discussed in my previous post. She embraced this reframing of problems—until she mentioned a problem of her own.

I gently suggested that she try to find a way to think of someone who would find her problem pleasant. At that point, she became defensive and certain that this problem and the suffering it has caused was something only someone who hated themselves could find pleasant. In other words, she missed the point, and interpreted that finding her suffering “pleasant” meant a kind of masochism born out of self-loathing.

Though I admit that it is a challenge to think of things that are the worst pain in the world (a loved one dying, fighting addiction, surviving terrible abuse, etc.) I don’t think that there can be exceptions if you are going to adopt these ideas as part of your spiritual/psychological practice. Kind of the whole point is that it challenges you to break out of what you think you know about your life and your capabilities and the roles you play.

And anyway, why would she get a magic exemption from having to do the tough, but healing, spiritual work that leads us to greater peace, love and equanimity? And further, why would you want that exemption, even if it existed, unless, of course, you were afraid to let the suffering go? A question to ask might be: Who do you think you are?

More and more, I think the goal of any spiritual journey (note I don’t say “religious journey”) is really the burning away of the trappings that keep you from revealing yourself as a luminous being that radiates love. The ego, the knee-jerk reactions, the devotion to material things over life, the compulsive/impulsive behavior that is born out of fear or anger. These things have to be stripped away.

So. Everyone suffers. You are not unique in this respect. It is true that everyone suffers differently, from different causes. And yet, you are not unique in what is asked of you, even in knowing that your suffering is excruciating to you.

So, on the spiritual journey, if you mean to take one: Yes, even your problem, no matter what it is, is something someone would find pleasant.

Someone Would Find Your Suffering Pleasant

In my yoga class last week, we got a handout on "Mahamudra & the Practice of Patience."

Here are the six points of the practice as listed:

• This too will pass.
• I cannot control this in the present moment.
• I have put this and myself here.
• There is somebody who would find this pleasant.
• I can use this problem as a path.
• We must be as gardeners.

All are worthy of contemplation, but the one that spoke to me particularly was the fourth, about finding something uncomfortable or upsetting as pleasant.

What a wonderful way to reframe pain or suffering, whether it be emotional, mental or physical!

I thought of the most physically painful experience I've ever had, which was childbirth.

No surprise there, except for I purposefully went into it refusing any drugs of any kind. Not because I enjoy pain or am some kind of martyr, but primarily because I wanted to be fully aware, fully functioning and, of course, because I didn't want my baby to be influenced by anything unnecessary. Millions have given birth without medication, and I knew it was possible.

It's a personal choice, of course, but in knowing this—knowing I didn't want pain relief—I had to do some serious work to prepare mentally for something all-consuming, painful and completely involuntary. There is no way to run away from childbirth. In classes and through reading and self-study, I worked with my breath and with pain-coping techniques. But above all, I had my mindset.

After that experience, I had no doubts about the whole "mind over matter" thing. Indeed, though each contraction was intense, overwhelming and painful, I never once countenanced the notion of getting drugs, because my mind was made up. (And a good thing I was prepared, too: my labor was so fast I would not have been able to have an epidural if I'd wanted one. Imagine if I had wanted one, and how great my pain would have seemed to me when compounded by dashed expectations!)

Still, it was painful. But thinking "Somebody would find this pleasant" casts the pain in a whole new light.

Who might find it pleasant? Someone who wants nothing more than to be a mother, but who is struggling with infertility or who has miscarried. Someone who has been paralyzed from the neck down. Someone whose body has been injured or is deformed such that a desired pregnancy is impossible.

Even in the moment, I knew the pain was for something good. But, what about pain nearly as bad, but that has no seeming benefit? A few months ago, I had kidney stones. (Misdiagnosed, so at the time I didn't know why I was writhing in pain.) It was excruciating--just horrible. I was so scared, because the doctors didn't know what was wrong with me. At the time, I had nothing positive going on in my head. But imagine if I could have at least tried to mitigate the clenching in my body and breath. Maybe I could have seen the pain as something positive: A body trying to let me know something was wrong--and therefore the chance to heal. If we didn't experience pain, how would we know to address whatever was causing such an insult?

At the furthest point, you can always look at suffering this way: Because of this suffering, I know I am alive. This requires that we look at life as a gift, no matter how tough. (I imagine that can be very difficult in very extreme situations, but that's a topic for another post. For now, it's worth thinking on as a thought experiment. How might even the worst situation be something we can be grateful for?)

Or from an emotional perspective: Remember the couple I discussed a few posts back? The pain of an impending divorce must have been overwhelming, depressing. But who might have seen it as pleasant? Perhaps a woman in Afghanistan, whose rights are so curtailed that divorce (no matter how terrible the husband) is not an option?

I think you can see the direction of these thought experiments.

So, I invite you: Look at your pain, your suffering, your problems, whatever they are, however transitory or permanent.

Now ask yourself, who would find your problem pleasant?