I cannot believe that up until now, I have not written an article here about the way I eat. Yes, this blog is primarily centered on people skills, but healthy eating and living is such a big deal for me that it’s about time you and I have a talk about it.
In short: I’m going to share with you the way I eat to stay healthy and upbeat. It’s a method I’ve been implementing for the past year, after years of trial and error on other paths. It is creating impressive results for myself and many other people.
The method is primal eating and it is part of a whole primal lifestyle. You can find The Primal Blueprint, the book that fittingly details this way of eating and living, here.
My Evolution of Eating
When I was 19, while reading the chapter on health and energy in a Tony Robbins book, I had the epiphany that a good health is really important, and I decided to make being in tip-top shape a priority for myself. In time, this decision got reinforced continually.
Later, I became a permissive vegetarian, as what I was reading suggested that vegetarianism is the best way of eating and staying healthy. At that point, as a newbie, it made sense.
The only problem was that after a while, I noticed that my energy level wasn’t very high and my mood wasn’t too good either. Also, as I kept reading and researching the topic of healthy eating, I started to question the validity of vegetarianism from a scientific perspective.
For example, I started wondering: If vegetarianism is our natural way of eating, why do most vegetarians have deficiencies in B12 vitamin and need to take supplements? If we are naturally vegetarians, then eating vegetarian should give us all the nutrients we require.
As I continued my research, I stumbled a couple of years ago on the paleo lifestyle and the primal lifestyle. They are similar in nature, although paleo focuses more on eating while primal focuses on the broad range of lifestyle choices: eating, exercise, sleeping etc.
At first, I didn’t pay too much attention to these two lifestyle choices. But the more I read, the more I stumbled upon positive reviews of them. The data started to stack up and it was inspiring.
Eventually, about one year ago, I began to dig into the topic of primal eating and living: books, blogs, scientific research, case studies and so on. I was stoked by what I read, and I quickly decided to go primal. It was one of the best health and fitness decisions I ever made.
Eat Like a Caveman
The crux of primal eating is this: our species (Homo sapiens) has been around for about 1.5 million years. However, civilization has only been around for about 10.000 years, which is like a day within one year if we scale it down. On top of this, heavily processed and genetically modified food has only been around for a few decades.
From on evolutionary perspective, our bodies did not have the time to adapt to this new way of eating and living. For the most part, we still digest food the way out ancestors did back in the Paleolithic period.
Thus, if we want to stay healthy, be in shape, have massive energy and live long, fit lives, we need to eat the way our ancestors did for 99% of our existence as a species. That’s what we are biologically adapted to.
So, what did our Paleolithic ancestors eat? Well, they were hunter-gatherers. They ate mostly meat, fish, eggs, fruit, leafs and vegetables. In these foods, they found all the nutrients they needed to live a healthy life. And we modern humans can as well.
Mark Sisson, the creator of the Primal Blueprint sums it up nicely in this short video.
The Raw Results
We’ve all heard it before that fruits and vegetables are good for us, so no surprise there in primal eating. The counterintuitive advice is to eat lots of meat and to avoid grains. This is where primal eating seriously strays from vegetarianism.
Prior to going primal, I used to eat lots of bread (whole grain), pasta, cereals and cookies. In other words: grain based food. I also avoided meat. However, in the last year, I’ve reversed this process completely.
Looking at the results, it’s been one of the best dietary decisions I have ever made. For starters, I have more energy than I ever had. I am able to focus a lot better, work until late and not feel tiered.
I sleep less, live more intensely and I feel really good psychologically. I have nights when I go salsa dancing and I dance almost non-stop for the entire night. In the morning, it feels like I just had a light workout.
Personally, I can’t illustrate any results related to losing weight. I’m thin as a rail and dropping pounds has never been my concern. However, I do have a friend who decided to give the primal blueprint a try and managed for the first time in years to lose weight and keep it off without starving himself.
Beyond my results, the number of personal stories from people who switched to a primal lifestyle and managed to lose weight, get in shape, gain more energy and boost their mood is staggering.
What I really like about primal eating is that it’s very well researched. It is very convincing from a rational, scientific perspective and it’s in line with the top research in nutrition (which is often not the research most of us find out about).
A Primal Blueprint Review
I find the logic of primal eating and living impenetrable. At this point, I can’t believe so many people still don’t have a clue about it and they’re wasting their lives counting calories, exercising like mad and trying to get in shape by applying narrow-minded nutritional advice.
I strongly encourage you to check out the Primal Blueprint, as I give it a highly positive review, and to try primal living. In fact, I believe it may turn out to be one of the best lifestyle decisions you have ever made.
Mark Sisson, the author of the book, provides in it a complete map for healthy eating, exercising, sleeping and living. The entire blueprint is rigorously researched and it literally makes sense from any angle you look at it.
Even more, primal eating is less grueling that vegetarianism or any diet you can ever go on. It’s something to learn about and implement as a life-long eating strategy.
Image courtesy of ionea76
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Hi Eduard
It is great to hear that you have found a way of eating that works for you.
I do have to comment on the B12 and vegetarianism idea in that, B12 comes from bacteria and if we all ate fresh fruits and veggies straight from our own gardens, no one would have a problem with B12. It is an argument that has been used against veganism or vegetarianism popularly, but it is rather misleading.
Many vegetarians and even vegans do suffer from various health problems or lack of energy when they fist switch over, as many rely on processed foods, and specifically grain products. So your observation in feeling great without processed grains is right on.
In the end, we each have to find what works for us, but I do always urge people to consider the spiritual evolution aspect of it all also. It is awesome to know how we started, but we are shifting into a whole new human being as we speak…
Hi!
I’m in no way trying to contradict what you’re saying, I’m merely expressing my thoughts on the subject. Evita made a very good point: we’re shifting into a whole new species, so we have to consider the fact that the first humans didn’t have the life expectancy we do, not to speak of the quality of life.
While I’m reluctant to believe our generation will get to live 1000 years (http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/03/can-humans-live.html) it may be achievable sooner than we think.
I personally do believe that every one of us should make his own diet, based of course on some general guidelines. We should take our ancestors’ diet and try to build from that, not copy it exactly.
Evita, Sorin,
I believe we are certainty still evolving as a species and personally, I find this exciting. On the other hand, from an evolutionary biology perspective, the transformation of our bodies takes places slowly, over hundreds of generations, through natural selection. This is why I say that even though we have civilization for 10.000 years, we are mostly not adapted to it in terms of how we process food.
Is there a way to eat like this while being lower-middle class or a college student? My family is the former and I’m the latter (well, both I guess). My biggest problem is the cost of eating right seems to be significantly more, but hopefully I just haven’t discovered the right way to do it. By the way, please don’t say that health bills later on will be more expensive than the difference–that doesn’t seem to important when you can’t pay rent on time.