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Posts tagged ‘Primal’

May 5

Myth busting – Part 9

This post is Part 9 of a continuing short series of posts tackling persistent myths in the world of healthy eating, with a particular focus on the consumption of animal foods as a source of ill health and environmental destruction.

If you like to cut through the b/s you see on social media these days and understand, in plain English, what’s really going on, then you may like to read the whole series starting from Myth busting – Part 1

Myth: All this talk of our ancient ancestors, how we evolved eating a lot of meat and this talk of ‘prehistoric man’ is all very interesting, but didn’t caveman die at like, 35 years old?

 

Truth: Prehistoric man didn’t die at 35. Infant mortality was very high, and a lot of people died from predators, communicable diseases and accidents. The rest lived to a good age. Cancer did exist, but as far as we know (from fossil evidence, which isn’t much), it was quite rare.

I blogged this whole piece a little while back, so if you regularly read my blog then you may have already seen this one, but it really fits with the other myths we are busting and paradigms we are shifting here in this mini-series, so I thought I would run it for you again as we transition from ‘animal consumption and human health’ to ‘animal agriculture and the environment’ which is coming up next.

‘Caveman’ didn’t always ‘die at 35’

Don’t believe everything you see on social media!

bullshit caveman meme

Recently, a friend of mine shared this image with me and asked me “So what can we say…?” and it’s a good point, this is something I am often asked about, it’s a common myth about our ancient ancestors. I could write a whole book on this, but I’ll keep it brief here. Read more

Dec 4

Do you want to learn it all…or just DO?

MND TV Episode 5 – what is MND and MND TV all about?!?!?

This video will help to explain what MND is all about, and what MND TV is all about…I talk and write about lots of different things, this short MND TV episode will help you to see what it’s all about and how it all connects together! Mother Nature’s beautiful world and our health and longevity is all one big holistic picture!!

I talk about and write about many different things, this video explains why I cover so many things.

http://mothernaturesdiet.tv/2014/09/15/mnd-tv-episode-5/

This video also explains that if you DON’T want to know all the complicated science and if you don’t want to read all my long blogs and watch all my videos, then just LIVE the 12 Core Principles and don’t ask any questions!

Watch the video and see how it all makes sense!

 

 

May 8

1 Comment

Real world, real workouts, real nutrition - keeping it simple and REAL with MND

As I wrote earlier this week, to help you get through my long posts, from now on I will put bullet points at the start, telling you in brief what the post is about, and in brief, the main conclusions or points that I come to.

This way, if you are short of time, you can read the bullet points, which only takes 30 seconds, and it should tell you the essence of the post – if it sounds interesting, you will find the 5 minutes you need to read the whole thing, but otherwise, the bullet points tell you enough to get the main idea.

I will try to remember to summarize all future posts this way. I hope this is helpful!

What is this post about?

  • We live in a time when we are drowning in information, the Internet offers more health, diet and fitness advice than you could ever read
  • The trouble is, most of it is rubbish!
  • The vast majority of diet and fitness information online, is unnecessarily complicated, usually because someone is trying to sell you something
  • I see far too many people wrapped up in all this time-wasting, complex detail, and yet they don’t have ‘the basics’ covered

Main conclusions:

  • In my opinion, the basics are simple things we can all do - eat real food, stay well hydrated, and demonstrate a solid. basic level of strength and fitness that can be adapted to all sports and fitness programs
  • Be able to run a few miles, do a few push-ups, lift your own bodyweight on a chinning bar - this is simple, basic stuff

Read on to learn more.

The diet and fitness industry online

In recent days, I’ve spent a few hours reading a variety of ‘health and nutrition’ pages on Facebook. I don’t want to put anyone else down, and I’m not trying to blow my own trumpet (well, maybe a bit, MND is the best page on Facebook!!)…but I have to say, there really is a total load of rubbish out there. There are loads of sites promoting supplements, loads focussed on weight loss, loads for body building, there are ‘disease-specific’ support groups, there are ‘tone up your tummy’ type diet pages, but there is an overwhelming amount of noise, with very little practical advice and sales-pitch-free useful information lost in the general hubbub of attention seeking marketing.

I’m not saying MotherNaturesDiet is all things to everyone, but this page is about REAL world stuff. I’m not a personal trainer, fitness model, yoga goddess, body builder or some other health and fitness professional. I’m a ‘normal’ guy, I have young kids, a day job and a busy life. I was fat and unhealthy for 20 years and I smoked and drank and made poor choices. But after 2 decades of making those poor choices, I figured out how to be healthy, and now I am sharing what I know with YOU. Read more

May 7

1 Comment

Are all calories created equal?

As I wrote yesterday, to help you get through my long posts, from now on I will put bullet points at the start, telling you in brief what the post is about, and in brief, the main conclusions or points that I come to.

This way, if you are short of time, you can read the bullet points, which only takes 30 seconds, and it should tell you the essence of the post – if it sounds interesting, you will find the 5 minutes you need to read the whole thing, but otherwise, the bullet points tell you enough to get the main idea.

I will try to remember to summarize all future posts this way. I hope this is helpful!

What is this post about?

  • So-called ‘flexible eating’ seems to be the latest popular diet fad
  • The idea is that you can eat pretty much whatever you like, providing you still burn more calories than you eat, so you don’t get fat
  • Here at MND HQ, I think that is downright wrong, and down right ignorant
  • This post looks at the main arguments, between ‘flexible eating’ - “a calorie is a calorie”, and ‘clean eating’ - “all calories are not created equal”

Main conclusions:

  • In my opinion, all calories are NOT created equal
  • Many factors affect your body’s absorption of the calories you consume, and the speed of that absorption, and the chemical make-up of those calories, affect HOW your body absorbs those calories
  • In my opinion, this ‘flexible eating’ is just the latest modern version od calorie counting

Read on to learn more.

Paleo diet, flexible dieting and clean eating

In 2013, the most searched for ‘diet’ online was the Paleo diet. In 2014, I am seeing a rising trend in ‘flexible dieting’ or ‘flexible eating’.

I’m very active in a number of online discussion groups, and in one of those online groups, the subject of flexible dieting comes up as a regular topic. It’s an area I have been looking at for some time now.

The main point of the flexible dieting fraternity is “a calorie is a calorie” and you can eat roughly what you like providing you stay in caloric deficit, then you won’t get fat. They do ‘mostly’ suggest you eat ‘mostly’ good real foods, but there are many proponents of flexible dieting out there suggesting you can eat pizza, chips, ice cream, chocolate bars, white bread, cake and more on a regular basis, daily indeed, providing you stay in caloric deficit - I.E. you burn more calories that you eat. I’m not a fan of this way of thinking, as you know. Read more

Apr 5

4 Comments

Eating the most nutritious meat…but on the smallest budget

This is a fantastic lunch recipe, super nutritious and very tasty. Please see pictured lambs kidneys and lots of green veggies - yum yum! This meal contains 250 grams of lambs kidneys, lots of green veggies – organic broccoli, cabbage, green pepper, tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach, and an assortment of spices – coriander, cumin, paprika, black pepper and chilli flakes.

 

Lean white skinless boneless chicken breasts

For most of the last 40 or 50 years we’ve been told that fat is bad, especially saturated fat from animal sources, and we should all eat a lean low-fat diet. This has resulted (at least here in the UK) in an obsession with skinless lean filleted chicken breast. People have been educated to ‘obsession point’ that fat is bad and even the skin or the ‘brown’ thigh meat is considered too high in fat. This has led to a scenario you are probably familiar with, stories of ‘abused broiler chickens’ - chickens bred for the size of their breasts. I am sure you have heard about the speed of their growth, how they live in cramped smelly barns and their bodies grow so fast their legs can buckle beneath them.

While European countries generally maintain better standards of animal husbandry than in the US, these issues are still a huge concern. They certainly bother me. Read more

Feb 7

3 Comments

Stand Up!

Lower back pain is a major health problem for many millions of people. Along with colds and flu, lower back pain is one of the biggest causes of lost working time in the Western world today. In my opinion, ‘most’ straightforward lower back pain problems are caused by sedentary lifestyles, poor posture, people spending far too many hours sitting down, and too many people having ‘uneven weight distribution’ in the form of a big fat belly! That comment is slightly tongue-in-cheek, I am not a qualified back-care specialist, and I appreciate that there are many other reasons for back pain. The spine is a complex structure, and the ‘core’ of a human, and understanding backs is a complex science for which I am not trained.

However, I think sedentary lifestyles and desk jobs, and comfy sofa’s in front of the TV, have created a generation of people who spend the majority of their waking hours sitting down, and this causes a lot of lower back problems. I personally suffered from lower back ache for several years. I had a ‘desk job’ between 1998 and 2006, and in those 8 years, my weight fluctuated between ‘normal’ and ‘overweight’ to just touching ‘obese’ in 2003 and again in 2005/6. Over that time, the combination of a 20-pound belly out front, and sitting on my behind for 15 hours per day, I suffered my share of lower back pain. Nothing debilitating, just a near-constant low level ache, worse on some days than others. Read more

Dec 31

2013 Popular Posts #1: How does juicing fit into a paleo diet and lifestyle?

Here it is! Number ONE, the top spot, the most popular post I have written on MotherNaturesDiet.com all year - by a LONG way, this post has been viewed THOUSANDS of times, more than twice as much as the post in second place!

Green juiceI am often asked -

  • Is juicing healthy?
  • Are we supposed to consume calories in liquid form?
  • Should I take vitamin and mineral supplements?
  • Are vitamin pills good value for money?
  • Are the foods we eat today nutrient-depleted? Is the soil nutrient deficient?
  • What’s the difference between juicing and blending?
  • Will juicing help me lose weight fast?

This most-popular post answers all these questions and more.
Read more here - https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2013/05/26/how-does-juicing-fit-into-a-paleo-diet-and-lifestyle/

Dec 31

2013 Popular Posts #2: MND Success Story – How one 67 year-old lady lost 84 lbs in LESS than A YEAR!

2013 Popular Posts #2: MotherNaturesDiet Success Story – How one 67 year-old lady lost 84 lbs in LESS than A YEAR and came off 4 out of 5 medications.

This fabulous story is deservedly among the most popular posts of 2013. Read how one of our wonderful followers defied conventional doctrine and massively and radically improved here health - let senior years be no barrier, whatever age you are, you can change for the better, add years to your life and life to your years, this lady looks better, feels better, has more energy, has freedom of movement, is off her meds and is feeling better in every way, and she is inspiring her friends and community members to make wiser, healthier choices every day.

Read more of this great story here - https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2013/11/12/mothernaturesdiet-success-story-how-one-67-year-old-lady-lost-84-lbs-in-less-than-a-year-and-came-off-4-out-of-5-medications/

Dec 31

2 Comments

Two whole years without alcohol

Today marks TWO YEARS since I consumed so much as a drop of alcohol.

I can honestly say that quitting alcohol has been one of the smartest decisions of my life.

I quit refined white sugar a few months earlier, and the combined effect of eliminating alcohol and sugar from my diet has been life-changing.

Alcohol is an insidious poison, it slowly takes a hold in your life, and it changes how your brain works in ways you will never fully understand until you are free from this drug.

If someone invented alcohol today, as a new product, it would be outlawed the same way cocaine is.

I have no intention of ever drinking again.

https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2013/07/01/alcohol-are-you-in-control-of-your-relationship-with-alcohol/

https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2013/12/31/miracle-hangover-cure/

Dec 30

2013 Popular Posts #7: Sugar and the Insulin Response

2013 Popular Posts #7: Sugar and the Insulin Response – in plain, simple English

This was the 7th most popular piece I wrote in 2013, and with good reason. I only wrote this at the start of November, so in just 8 weeks it’s been viewed a lot of times.

Understanding the way your body responds to eating sugar, and starchy carbohydrates, is fundamentally important. MND Core Principle NUMBER ONE is “Eliminate grain and starchy carbs from your diet” and MND Core Principle NUMBER TWO is “Eliminate refined white sugar from your diet” - these are the single most important thing you can do to improve your health long term.

Read this post and understand the basic science - in the simplest plain English I could manage - behind these valuable rules for healthy living.

https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2013/11/03/sugar-and-the-insulin-response-in-plain-simple-english/

Dec 29

2013 Popular Posts #11 (joint 11th place): Sugar is Public Enemy #1

This post explains how the diet industry led everyone in the wrong direction when they blamed saturated fat, and animal products specifically, for the rise in heart disease.

Sugar is the great offender in the modern Western diet. Since diet foods ‘cut the fat’ they just added more sugar - and obesity rates, diabetes, heart disease and cancer have all been rising ever since.

https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2013/02/28/sugar-is-public-enemy-1-stop-blaming-meat-and-fat/

When they started pushing low fat

If you read this post and then want to know more about which animal products are health-giving and which should be avoided, I have written extensively on this subject, and you will find links on this page - https://mothernaturesdiet.me/2013/04/08/the-bbc-seemingly-recommending-a-big-mac-over-a-home-cooked-sunday-roast/

Oct 2

3 Comments

Training hard to resist aging and weakening

Some of you regular readers may have noticed a lot of recent posts related to working out, perhaps with more focus on strenuous workouts and less on the gentle workouts. This is not always the case, here on MND I talk about the need for regular gentle exercise - walking, outdoor play, an easy bike ride, a nice swim - but I also talk about the need for more strenuous exercise.

I am 43 years old. I keep myself super-fit. As a benchmark, at any time, with no warning or preparation time, I could bang out 500 push-ups in an hour and then jump up and run 20 miles. That’s a level of fitness which I maintain pretty much year round.

However, I notice that a LOT, I mean the vast majority, of people I meet in my age group, do not maintain anything like that level of fitness (in fact, most people I meet in their 20s and 30s too) and most people consider me to be rather ‘extreme’, an exercise addict and some kind of ‘fitness freak’. But if you re-read this old post from a year ago, and think about our ancestors before 15,000 years ago, they HAD to be this fit all the time, throughout their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.

Mortality rates in our ancient ancestors

While there has been much discussion about ‘caveman’ not living to a ripe old age, the data is not straightforward and should be carefully analysed. Read more

Jul 2

Free greens for breakfast

This week, I’ve been eating dock leaves.

Not only are they great at stopping the itch from stinging nettles, but they go quite well in my scrambled eggs too.

I go out early every morning, at 6 am, either running or walking, and pick fresh young dandelion leaves and dock leaves on my way home.

Start with a drizzle of oil in the pan, thrown in the leaves, soften for a minute or two, then throw in a few free range organic eggs (and a few mushrooms, if you have them).

Breakfast in 4 minutes, nutritious and delicious!

Enjoy!

Jun 10

4 Comments

Paleo-Reality Part 3: Why MND and The Pre-Industrial Diet offers all the answers.

Part 3 of 3.

How does MotherNaturesDiet differ from The Paleo Diet or The Primal Blueprint?

This post is a 3-part complete appraisal of how I see MotherNaturesDiet in comparison to the Paleo or Primal diet movement.

Please read...
Paleo-Reality Part 1: What’s right and wrong about paleo diets.
...and...
Paleo-Reality Part 2: Introducing The PI Diet – The Pre-Industrial Diet.
...first, these will help this to all make more sense, thanks!

Read more

Jun 10

3 Comments

Paleo-Reality Part 2: Introducing The PI Diet – The Pre-Industrial Diet.

Part 2 of 3.

This post is a complete appraisal of how I see MotherNaturesDiet in comparison to the Paleo or Primal diet movement.

Please read Part 1 first: Paleo-Reality Part 1: What’s right and wrong about paleo diets.

Thanks!

Read more

Jun 10

5 Comments

Paleo-Reality Part 1: What’s right and wrong about paleo diets.

Summary of this post:

MotherNaturesDiet is NOT ‘just another paleo diet’, copied from The Paleo Diet or The Primal Blueprint Diet.

While I truly 100% support The Paleo Diet and The Primal Blueprint, I think a lot of the people following the Paleo movement are, frankly, getting it wrong and missing the point.

I do not think we need to look back as far as The Paleolithic Era to see where things went wrong with the human diet.

MotherNaturesDiet is slowly becoming “The Pre-Industrial Diet”. I believe the Industrial Revolution is where it all went wrong. MND remains MND, but it is also ‘The PI Diet’.

This post is packed with masses of common sense thinking, explaining a few fundamental holes in ‘Paleo Diet’ logic, exploring the truth behind The Discordance Hypothesis, and looking at where so much about our modern diet really went wrong, with the mechanization and industrialization of agriculture.

Read on for more…

Read more

May 27

2 Comments

Dandelion greens - FREE food from Mother Nature

Enjoy free food from Mother Nature - readily available everywhere in the UK in spring and summer, dandelion greens are nutrient-packed, higher in protein than spinach and they are easy to include in many meals.

Read more

May 26

14 Comments

How does juicing fit into a paleo diet and lifestyle?

Summary of this blog post:

Answering questions from a reader -

Q: Should we take supplements and superfoods?

A: No, we should just drink freshly extracted organic vegetable juice every day.

Q: Juices and sweet fruit smoothies?

A: Yes to the juices, but go easy on the smoothies.

I recently posted a video titled “There is no such thing as superfood”

After watching this, and after some discussion, a friend of mine asked me “Do you disagree that supplementation can help compensate for the difficulty in acquiring all nutrients and anti-oxidants in modern diets? I.E. when not eating full primal?”

I recommended juicing as the only form of “supplement” that I think is worth taking and this friend eats a mostly paleo/primal diet, and as such our subsequent discussion can be broadly defined as looking at ‘is there a place for juicing and supplements in a paleo diet’ – but of course, the discussion is of interest to anyone who cares about living a healthy lifestyle.

Read on for this Q&A discussion in full.

Read more

Apr 27

Love, Sex and Monogamy in Paleolithic Times and Today

This might be straying a little off topic for this blog, so I offer a link for those interested. I am deeply interested in all aspects of evolution and anthropology, including those aspects that go beyond health and nutrition.

I have been reading ‘Paleofantasy’ by Marlene Zuk. In the book, she discusses what she terms “paleofantasy love” and she quotes Sarah B. Hrdy and the ‘sex contract’ hypothesis.

Meat for sexual fidelity: the sex contract hypothesis

Hrdy and others suggest that our ancient ancestors traded ‘meat for fidelity’, and this forms the core of the ’sex contract’ hypothesis. Note: to be fair to Ms Hrdy, I have NOT read her original work, and I am basing any judgements in this blog on the quotes in Marlene Zuk’s Paleofantasy. The notion goes, that as our large brains grew, caveman became smart enough to realise that his best chances of producing offspring that reach adulthood was to provide for his woman while she nurtured the babies, so he hunted the meat, while cave woman sat at home tending the babies, and she gave him sexual fidelity in return for him bringing home food for his kin.

In my uneducated opinion, this is wrong.

To read more about how I see love, sex and pair bonding in the paleolithic period, click through to my other blog site and have a read. Feel free to let me know what you think. Thanks.

http://karlwhitfield.me/2013/04/25/love-sex-and-monogamy-in-paleolithic-times-and-today/

 

Apr 20

My honest opinion of Paleo Cookbooks

I have recently stated a few times that MotherNaturesDiet is not strictly a paleo diet, but it has evolved from my learnings and following the main principles of paleo. I think a paleo diet as laid out by ‘the masters’ such as Robb Wolf, Loren Cordain, Mark Sisson and others, is fantastic, but I think many followers in the paleo community have taken the paleo theme and then run with it to a point that they have strayed far from the original ideas.

I will write more on this topic, in much more depth, in a future post. For today, I just wanted to briefly cover a sub-set of this, a subject that gets my back up, the idea of publishing paleo cookbooks promoting hundreds of paleo recipes - and the misnomer of a ‘Paleo Desert Cookbook’ - like they ate desert in the paleolithic period! I have blogged briefly on this topic before, check this post for that.

So this short video just covers the latest ‘Paleo Desert Cookbook’ that I saw advertised. Sorry about the sound quality on this clip, it’s not so good.

http://youtu.be/EURspvarIpA

 

 

Apr 20

Reaction to PaleoFantasy Book #2

I am still reading Paleofantasy, a new book which aims to disprove much of the core beliefs of the paleo movement. This is my second video about this book.

The book is not shaping up to be what I thought it might be, I don’t find the arguments against paleo nutrition very convincing, but it is interesting reading all the same.

I do not present MotherNaturesDiet as ‘a paleo diet’ strictly, though we do follow broadly the same principles. However, as I explain in this video (link below), I actually think many in the paleo community are missing the point somewhat, as I don’t think we need to go all the way back to the paleolithic period to find what is wrong with our modern diet. I actually think we only have to go back to the Industrial Revolution to find the source of most of our biggest health and nutrition problems.

I see MotherNaturesDiet as a pre-Industrial Revolution diet, ‘The PI Diet’ more than just another paleo diet.

Watch this little video to learn more.

http://youtu.be/USIoJ2d7jb8

 

 

Apr 20

Reaction to PaleoFantasy Book #1

I have started reading Paleofantasy, a new book which aims to disprove much of the core beliefs of the paleo movement.

MotherNaturesDiet is not strictly ‘a paleo diet’, but we do follow broadly the same principles, and MND has certainly been formed from my own ‘caveman thinking’ and the influence of Mark Sisson, Loren Cordain and Robb Wolf, among others.

As I read this book, I will video blog by thoughts, here is the first video.

http://youtu.be/EN8-rnZPx3s

 

 

Mar 15

2 Comments

Avoiding injuries, training and eating ‘caveman style’

One year ago this day, I fractured my spine in two places falling 6 foot onto a concrete floor while training.

To be honest, I have a very high pain threshold, but that accident did hurt quite a lot. Especially after 24 hours, then it really kicked in and for a week or so all movement was very painful and very difficult and very limited.

I guess there is a certain amount of potential danger involved in the way I train. I climb rocks and trees, dangle from branches and bars, jump over things and run over uneven grass and mud. I have suffered a number of injuries, such as twisted ankles, stress fracture in my tibia, shin splints, fractured rib, several fractured fingers and toes, a couple of muscle sprains, compressed disc in my back, muscle spasms and the obvious trashed knee (from running, I had surgery last year) and a variety of cuts and scratches.

Life can be dangerous

Read more

Mar 10

Is Free Range Meat Expensive?

I am often asked about the cost of free-range, outdoor-reared, organic meat. Many people question if it costs too much to eat the MND way.

I admit that some organic food is expensive, and some free range meat is expensive, but honestly, personally, I think the investment in my health is worth it. I buy food that nourishes my body, I know the animals have been treated properly, with some dignity and respect, and I know the life of that animal, and hence the food I am eating, has been lived more in tune with nature.

The picture shows a lunch I cooked last week. Pork and greens, quick, simple, yummy. I put a drizzle of olive oil in the pan, chopped up a leek first and threw that in, then I chopped up my pork tenderloin, threw that in, then a handful of kale chopped up (I keep telling you I eat either kale or broccoli every day of my life, often both, often multiple times! I had kale in all my meals the day I made this!)

Quick and cheap, for my main meal of the day

This took less than 5 mins to prepare, and max 5 mins to cook.

My pork tenderloin weighed 395 grams raw (about a pound) it cost just £3.65

So this lunch cost about £4 quid in total, and it was tasty, natural and nutritious. I sprinkled on some black pepper and a sprig of parsley, easy, quick, tasty. No additives. No chemicals...there was even some free mud on my kale. Perfect, I didn't even wash it off.

Read more

Mar 3

Stop overeating: switch to eating simpler meals using fewer ingredients

I recently wrote about how so many people opt for sugar-laden tasty foods in preference to vegetables, in large part because their media-shrivelled brains crave constant hit after hit, and sweet tasty foods is one big way to get that hit. People have forgotten that food is really just fuel, it is there to sustain us living and breeding and functioning. But for far too many people, food (and the art of creating a meal) has become a leisure activity in its own right.

To many people, eating has become a hobby, a favourite pastime, and a distraction from the many areas of their lives that are less than fully satisfying. In my opinion, (and you must remember that everything on this blog is just that, a collection of my personal opinions) food is just fuel, and it is not meant to be a hobby to indulge in every day.

I have nothing against preparing a delicious meal for a gathering of friends. The 'tribal feast' has surely been a part of human culture since long before we developed language, agriculture and society. No doubt tribes would gather and feast after a successful collaborative hunt millions of years ago. I too enjoy cooking a feast for visitors and enjoying a tasty meal with several courses as the centre of such a social gathering…but I’m talking once or twice per month, not 7 days per week. Too many people treat their evening meal as the highlight of their day, and they focus their attention and energy on preparing that meal and making it as tasty, fancy and satisfying as possible.

Read more

Mar 2

Controversial Rant - The Diet Industry is ONE BIG CON!!!

Some days I get REALLY annoyed about the whole 'diet industry', it makes me so angry that there is so much misinformation out there. I was looking at another nutrition training course the other day, costing a couple of thousand dollars, and selling itself as ‘cutting edge’ and ‘representing the new paradigm’ in diet and nutrition. This drives me crazy, really, there is NO cutting edge, NO new paradigm, there are no ‘amazing secrets’ or ‘miracle cures’...this is all just marketing speak to get you to buy diet books, supplements, powders, potions and fad exercise equipment.

I get so frustrated – we shouldn’t be looking for ‘the cutting edge’, or ‘the latest thing’, there is no ‘21st century solution’, in fact I would say the majority of the human population has never been so malnourished as they are now, they – WE – have never eaten so badly as we do now...yet at the same time, more humans eat more calories than ever. People are stuffed and fat, but malnourished at the same time, and hence suffering from such a wide array of health complaints, diseases and physical malfunction.

Read more

Feb 24

Train hard, eat well, sleep

I trained hard today, in my home gym, lots of body-weight moves, but using my OLD body weight. I have a weight vest which puts 5 stones (70 pounds, 32 kilos) extra on my frame. I like to exercise wearing this vest, as it reminds me that I lost all that fat, and more, over the years.

No wonder I found 20 push-ups hard work back then. 20 push-ups now wearing that vest is hard work! Without the vest, I can bang out sets of 50 no problem, but the vest really makes a big difference, just 20 is hard work.

Read more

Feb 17

5 Comments

Naturally reared meat versus ‘junk meat’

With my deep interest in nutrition and good health, I have obviously read many books about food and whether or not we should eat meat, versus a vegetarian diet. There are many books, The China Study (largely the text behind the movie “Forks over Knives”) being one of the most prominent examples, which show the virtues of avoiding meat, and these books promote a vegetarian diet.

Obviously, I am a meat eater, and I do enjoy meat, I like the taste and I have found myself left wanting when I have lived on a vegetarian diet in the past. But I don’t eat meat JUST because I like the taste, and if I saw evidence that I genuinely believed, proving that meat was bad for me, compelling me to reduce my intake of animal products, then I would consider cutting right back on my meat consumption or even giving it up altogether.

Show me the evidence

Read more

Feb 17

The 3 major problems with most ‘diets’ and health ‘experts’

I think that most ‘experts’ in health, diet and nutrition are well-intentioned, but many are making the whole healthy lifestyle thing more complicated than it needs to be.

As you can imagine, with my passionate personal interest in all things to do with health, nutrition, food and longevity, I read a LOT of books, blogs, articles and magazines, and I listen to many hours of videos, presentations and seminars on health related topics. I have to say, the vast majority of the material I read and listen to, fails to win my complete support because of any one or more of these 3 most common problems.

Read more

Feb 16

3 Comments

We wouldn’t feed pizza to a rhino, so why are we feeding it to our children?

Think about the so-called food available to us today.

Imagine you are visiting the zoo, and you see the zoo keepers feeding the animals. They put the food out for the big rhino, buckets of roughly chopped up vegetables, perhaps some pieces of fruit, and all seems well. During a demonstration talk, the keeper offers the rhino a jam doughnut as he cracks some joke about "even this big guy likes a treat each day" and most of the spectators laugh as the rhino eagerly gobbles down the doughnut. A few people would quietly be thinking 'you shouldn't give things like that to an animal, it's cruel' but they don't say anything, they keep their opinions to themselves for fear of appearing to be an extremist.

But now let's say things are different, let's picture a different scenario. Imagine if our rhino is kept in his muddy, grassy enclosure and fed bucket loads of pizza, burgers, chips, pies, pastries, cakes, ice cream, chocolate bars and biscuits. Every day the public visit this zoo and watch the keepers fill our rhino's drinking trough with cola or beer or milkshake, and the ground of his enclosure is littered with chewing gum, pizza crusts, cheese sandwiches and cookies. What would the vast majority of zoo visitors say then?

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Feb 15

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Eating a Paleo Diet

If you have read the Rules and My Story pages on this site, by now you will understand that I am a big fan of the primal/paleo movement, but I want to be clear about what this all means to me.

I broadly agree with all the fundamental principles of the paleo movement, but I think there are a lot of people out there who have jumped on the paleo bandwagon as 'the new Atkins' diet and they are using this as an excuse to feast daily on bacon and steak and all-you-can-eat meat, but they are paying little attention to the health aspects of living a life more in sync with our bodies natural biological origins.

True paleo means a deep respect and connection with Mother Nature

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Oct 20

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Regular Exercise and Weight Training

Too many people forget that a healthy lifestyle is an active lifestyle, and should include a variety of exercise and activities. Think about caveman’s lifestyle compared to ours today. He didn’t have a car, a sofa, an armchair, a soft bed, pillows, cushions, a thick duvet or a padded work chair at his desk. He didn’t work in an office, he didn’t have a desk, he didn’t drive a car or truck for 9 to 10 hours each day, he didn’t sit down all day.

I often think about the work caveman would have had to do. Imagine the running involved in chasing down an animal such as a wild boar. Caveman would have had to chase the animal at pace through woodland for long enough to exhaust the boar, before finally getting close enough to attack his prey, and then fight to the death. Caveman may been armed with a stone-tipped spear, to bring the animal down, but in all eventuality, once wounded, he would have had to go in for the kill, and he probably would have used a ‘knife’ made from a sharpened bone from a previous kill, or a pointed stick, and he would have had to attack, wrestle, and kill the animal by hand. This 200 pound boar with short tusks, hard hooves and strong teeth, would have been fighting for its life. Think about how much work caveman had to do to secure his meal. He had to be a strong middle-distance runner, a careful sprinter (minding hazards on the forest floor – there is no hospital if he broke his ankle), and a tough cage-fighter (no tetanus jab for cuts and scratches).

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Sep 2

Taking a COLD Shower

Over the last few years I have read various articles about the health benefits of taking a regular cold shower. Some say cold showers improve your circulation, some say they help weight loss, some say they radically improve your libido and sexual stamina, some claim cold showers boost your immunity, some say they relieve depression and some say they just make you feel cold.

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Aug 26

Fresh air and rock climbing

I was lucky today and managed to arrange a day out rock climbing (my #1 favourite pastime and in my opinion the best sport in the world!)

A friend and I went to a great place called Wintour’s Leap near Chepstow in South Wales, and we even enjoyed some blue skies and warm sunshine.

Rock climbing is an excellent ‘primal’ form of exercise…combining fresh air and time spent in a natural environment, with muscular exercise, and usually some walking to get to and from the rocks. And it is plain great fun, I love it!