Book Giveaway Offer: Primal Blueprint

This book changed my life with respect to diet and exercise. I have no affiliation with it, but I'd like to give away one copy of The Primal Blueprint. I only ask two things: Whoever requests it intends to read it right away. Once you're done reading it, pay it forward to someone else.

www.amazon.com/Primal-Blueprint-Reprogra...ndless/dp/0982207700

I think a healthy body is highly conducive to a healthy mind. I suspect eating and exercising how we were evolved to has played a part in my experience of very little dark night.

Just comment in this thread if you are interested.
Thanks,

-Justin

"This book changed my life with respect to diet and exercise. I have no affiliation with it, but I'd like to give away one copy of The Primal Blueprint. I only ask two things: Whoever requests it intends to read it right away. Once you're done reading it, pay it forward to someone else.

www.amazon.com/Primal-Blueprint-Reprogra...ndless/dp/0982207700

I think a healthy body is highly conducive to a healthy mind. I suspect eating and exercising how we were evolved to has played a part in my experience of very little dark night.

Just comment in this thread if you are interested.
Thanks,

-Justin"

Hi Justin, I did research this a bit when it came up on another thread earlier this summer and am interested and willing to give it a try. If no one else jumps in, I would happily accept your generous offer. Thanks!
-Jake

Great! Jake, please private message me your shipping info.

-Justin

I've lost 45 pounds over the last year thanks to the paleo approach, part of which involves eliminating the "Three Horsemen of the Standard American Diet (SAD)": wheat gluten, industrial seed oils and sugar, aka the hepatoxin fructose! A neurologist friend of mine hipped me to this diet and it has made a massive change in my life. He's now writing a book about how ditching gluten cured his migraines (by getting rid of brain inflammation caused by the autoimmune reaction to gluten).

I've lost almost 20 in a couple of months (thanks for introducing me to this Joel). I'm not as strict with it as I could be, but I'm aiming in the direction of paleo.

"I've lost almost 20 in a couple of months (thanks for introducing me to this Joel). I'm not as strict with it as I could be, but I'm aiming in the direction of paleo."

That's great, Jayson.
You know, the average American now consumes more than 150 pounds of sugar in a year. I don't think being intensely strict is required--the 80/20 rule is more than enough. Excessive fastidiousness about diet can certainly become a trap at a certain point.

I strongly concur on 80/20 - Mark Sisson's approach in the primal blueprint really focuses on this.

Wow guys, this is exciting! I'll be sure to update this thread in a few months with my experiences and results! I like the idea of being flexible within an overarching approach. I've found it's easiest to do behavioral change by adding something positive than by subtracting something negative, as adding the positive seems to refine my sensibilities until dropping the negative is more natural.

Interesting about the wheat-gluten/inflamation connection, too Joel. I have an autoimmune inflammatory issue which is basically a mystery, so it would be very interesting if cutting way back on gluten had an impact on this. Thanks again Justin!
-jake

Jake - One thing that you may want to consider trying is doing hardcore strict paleo for 30 days just to experience your body's baseline and then start re-adding some things to your diet as you see fit. I did not go this route, but some do, so its totally personal preference.

I would not be at all surprised if your inflammatory issue completely goes away.

Sending the book shortly.

-Justin

Thanks man!

Further info from the recent Ancestral Health Symposium

'The Case Against Sugar(s)''”Gary Taubes
vimeo.com/27929821

'The Lost Art of Play''”Mark Sisson
vimeo.com/27648777

'Food and Western Disease''”Staffan Lindeberg
vimeo.com/27600322

'The Paleo Solution''”Robb Wolff
vimeo.com/27637822

With these positive endorsements, I thought I would order the book and give it a go as well.

How easy is it to adapt a primal lifestyle with vegetarianism?..........Im a bit torn, I have been veggie for about 1.5years now, it started off motivated by health but it also has an ethical dimension. As I try to regard all beings, including animals with a sense of friendliness and concern.........im not sure how easy it would be for me to get back into the habit of consuming them again!?

what do others think, or how have you adapted the primal lifestyle to Buddhist ethics??

Hi Ed.
The more I think about it, the more I think this thread belongs in the "off topic" category. KFD is really about pragmatic approaches to awakening rather than discussions of diet, exercise and so forth. However, I'll go ahead and give you my take: I do believe you can take a primal approach to vegetarianism by avoiding wheat gluten and grains (carbs like white rice, potatoes and sweet potatoes seem to be fine if consumed moderately), soy (condiment-level quantities only), industrial seed oils (basically, stay away from all oils except coconut oil and olive oil), sugar (to the greatest extent possible, get it out of your diet) and by simply refusing to eat anything that comes in a box or a bag.

If you take this whole foods approach, odds are you'll feel like a million bucks after a few weeks. One thing that, say, raw food vegan diets and the paleo approach have in common is the elimination of these important food toxins.

In tandem with this, it's important to take great care in thoroughly soaking and cooking the legumes you eat in order to minimize the antinutrients, and to learn to see saturated fat as your friend. Hopefully, you're willing to eat eggs and fish. While some paleo folks ditch dairy altogether, if you can tolerate it, I'd go ahead and eat lots of whole-fat yogurt. Put heavy cream in your coffee. Eat full-fat, pastured butter from brands like Kerry Gold. Believe it or not, lowering the overall amount of carbohydrate in your diet and raising the saturated fat content will actually will raise your HDL and lower your trigs. Improvements in this ratio correlate with lower risk of a heart attack [cont.]

I buy Ken Wilber's argument about depth and span. A sperm whale--lots of depth. Plankton--no depth, lots of span.
Thus Wilber will eat animals up to the depth of a chicken. Sardines and other fish--not so much depth there. Eating fish is hugely beneficial. The mercury issue is largely a red herring, pun intended, because in most species the selenium mitigates any toxic effects from the mercury. The Japanese have something like an 87 percent lower rate of heart disease, and experts think it's because of the anti-inflammatory effects of all the fish they eat, as well as their lower rates of sugar consumption.

On the ethical stuff, each month I drive about four hours round trip to a farm in Ellijay, Ga., where I can buy meat from animals that I know were humanely treated. As Michael Pollan puts it, they had "a happy life and one bad day." When I drive up, the cows are lounging under shade trees, hanging out together and eating only grass--it is the farthest thing from a factory-farm CAFO. I have my moments of doubt about this. However, my metabolism was wrecked by the standard American diet by the time I was in my 20s. I went for years weighing about 257 pounds and I didn't do well as a vegetarian, including bouts of anxiety that I now believe might have been caused at least in part by the lack of healthy fats in my diet. My dad died at an early age from cancer. I've got kids. Given that our human lineage has been eating meat since homo habilis 2.5 million years ago, it's hard for me to believe that meat-eating is unethical under all circumstances.
Clearly, though, factory farming is an abomination.

Lastly, I really like this guy Chris Kresser, an avid Zen meditator who has studied Chinese medicine and takes a really balanced approach to these issues. He advocates a basically paleo approach, but works with a lot of vegetarians. His articles are revelatory and always backed up by the science. Good stuff. His podcasts are excellent and are really illuminating.
The Web site is
chriskresser.com/

Cheers Joel,

Yes, maybe it would be good to start a thread 'off topic'. Im going to give it a go and when I launch in it might be a useful place to ask for feedback.

Some very useful stuff there, especially clarification as to what in and whats out. I guess cutting out gluten for a bit seems like my main priority, based on what I have heard.

I like the Ken wilbur argument. Although im not sure how convinced I am. For example I think most of the buddhist stuff is about intention. So there is value in taking a spider outdoors as opposed to squishing it. So part of me thinks the value in abstaining from eating anilmals of any depth, lies not so much in weighing up their potential suffering but in the positive affects of putting other beings before oneself, simultaneously developing a kind heart and diminishing self importance (even is its a bit of plankton)

Also from accounts I have heard, chickens express personality in much the same way cats and dogs do. Which I think would (off the top of my head) be one of the criteria of where to draw the line. I also think chickens express a degree of compassion (if that's the right word) in the way they look after their chicks.......so one could speculate there is some form of emotional life there. Plankton, though seems a pretty safe bet.

I think I will reconsider eating fish though and look up chriskresser.

There is a whole spectrum of views on this subject, I'm not trying to be judgmental as everyone has to find their own way. It sounds like a good farm. One of the reasons I stopped eating meat was because I couldn't really afford the Ethical stuff, and ended up with about 6 drumsticks for £3. There is no doubt cheap meat, is bad news!.............cheers for the advice!

" "

Hi Ed.
Yes, this stuff gets very complex, very quickly. Wilber's argument is appealing but certainly could be seen as arbitrary. Who gets to decide the whole depth/span thing? A vegetarian diet relies 100 percent on agriculture, which cannot exist without the destruction of entire ecosystems and, therefore, the destruction of lots and lots of individual animals, thousands of which are also killed in the harvesting of the crops themselves. Deeply personal stuff and probably more appropriate for "off topic."
Lots of edits. Sorry!

FWIW, I don't see this as off topic. I think diet is a key component in brain health.

All of Joel's recommendations seem spot on.

"FWIW, I don't see this as off topic. I think diet is a key component in brain health.

All of Joel's recommendations seem spot on."

I hear you, but of course the lack of consensus--there are plenty of low-fat vegetarians who see saturated fat as the enemy of brain health and consider paleo a disastrous diet--makes it tricky territory. But of course we don't want to be overly rigid about this stuff, either. (i.e. nothing wrong with a good debate so long as don't get our flames on, so to speak)

Hi - So been primal (as per joels guidelines) the last few days.....no wheat,grains, legumes, no sugar etc general day has been fruit and boiled egg in the morning, soup or salad for lunch and steamed veggies with either white rice or sweet potatoes for dinner.

Really started to feel good by thursday and friday...pretty clear headed and also my appetite slowly diminished to the point of not really feeling any hunger, just occasional pangs in the stomach. However, yesterday eve went for a walk and towards end felt really feint......Had no appetite but felt something was wrong.....eat some steamed broccoli and leeks, with a bit of cheese. Woke up in night with awful stomach cramps and heart burn.........really painful and unpleastant. Was hard going to work today felt weird and out of sorts.

Any clues??.........not enough calories? wheat withdrawal...........feeling quite rough and not sure what to do now (except have a big plate of fish and chips)...........loss of hunger meant no desire to eat, even when it got painful.......yet part of my brain also saying its hunger in a different form?!

Yeah, this can happen initially: www.marksdailyapple.com/low-carb-flu/

You may want to try a couple of days of 80/20 and have some grains to get things back in order. If you want to try to push through then sweet potatoes are a good option. Either way, you will feel better soon.

good luck!

Hi Ed.
What you're trying to do with this diet is get your blood sugar under control and heal your metabolism. If you go low-carb enough early on, your body will have to learn how to swtich from running on blood sugar to running on your own fat stores/and the ketone bodies that your liver will produce. This is a notoriously difficult period. I felt exactly as you have just described, but I also had a significant amount of "brain fog" for a bit and almost gave up the diet. Once you come out of it, though, your energy levels will stabilize, your head will clear and you will feel great.

However, you also need to understand that as you go through this transition period, you're losing sodium and water like crazy. As counterintuitive as it sounds, you actually want to ramp up your salt content significantly, and make sure you drink plenty of water. This will help.

I've been thinking about your situation, though. To do what you're trying to do--take a more primal approach to a vegetarian diet--might not be as doable as I've suggested. You need a lot of saturated fat in your diet. After all, you're cutting way back on one of the main macronutrients--carbohydrate--and this has to be replaced by something. Most paleo eaters will be eating lots of meat and getting plenty of fat and protein.
I was thinking about your situation and have some additional ideas on what you could do. Just shoot me an e-mail if you're interested. In the meantime, try to increase the amount of saturated fat in your diet as much as possible. (It really helps to read, read, read so you can be more confident in this approach by understanding what it's all about.)
Just my two cents.
Joel