Primal Observations: Sleep, Bug Bites & Allergies

It’s been about six weeks since I switched to Mark Sisson’s ‘Primal Blueprint‘ lifestyle and I’m starting to notice some interesting ‘coincidences’ – except that I don’t believe in coincidences.

First, I started to sit in the sun for an hour or so after work, weather permitting [this IS New England…], and I’ve noticed that on the days I get some sun, no matter whether I exercised or not, I sleep like a baby that night. I fall asleep quickly – and more importantly to me – I STAY asleep the entire night and wake up feeling refreshed. I don’t know if I’ve every written about it here, but normally I don’t fall asleep right away and I wake up many times throughout the night and generally get out of bed feeling exhausted, so this is a big deal to me. I don’t know if it’s because I have a vitamin D deficiency that getting some low-level sun after 4:45pm helps to restore, or if it’s allowing myself to relax and do nothing for an hour while being outdoors [though, I tend to read MDA or listen to talk radio while I’m out there, which sometimes isn’t relaxing, but I still sleep great regardless…]? I don’t really know, but I also don’t care. If it’s sunny out and warm enough for me to expose my legs and back to the sun for a while, I’ll be out there. I do cover my face, since I read that the skin on your face doesn’t produce much vitamin D, so why accelerate the aging process there? lol…

Going Primal

Recommended Reading – Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson

I don’t remember the last time I posted [just checked – it’s been over a year, wow!], but I’m ready to get back into it. I’ve been away because, quite frankly, I’ve been in a self-imposed plateau for two-plus years. I say ‘self-imposed’ because I got lazy about counting every calorie, weighing everything I eat and writing every little thing down. I stopped wearing my body bugg, which was a huge help in the beginning because I had no concept of portion control [though, looking at it now, it was because of the foods I was eating and not so much about a lack of willpower]… I think I got burned out. Starting a new job at a small company for a very demanding boss didn’t help. Oh, and I broke a toe last year around this time clean through and it took forever for it to heal… [like, I’m JUST starting to wear normal shoes again and can finally go hiking and trail running after taking last year off, which was a total bummer!].

The good news is, I successfully maintained the 65+ lbs I’d already lost up until before the last holiday season. I ended up gaining 10lbs between November and February… then came to find out I had an enormous cyst on my right ovary, which might have explained some of the crazy cravings I was having, along with the fatigue and scary abdominal pain, which prevented me from doing my usual workouts [resistance training, kickboxing, running… high impact or heavy lifting – so anything I enjoyed doing!]. Even walking on the treadmill at anything higher than a 2.8 felt like I was being stabbed with each stop. not fun… I normally walk at a 4.0 or 4.2… 2.8 is slower than a warm up for me… I was diagnosed on 2/26 and had surgery on 3/26. I think I stopped working out for a total of 8 weeks, during which time I felt gross. I couldn’t wear normal pants without a ‘bella band’ because the cyst was so big – my doctor said it was like the equivalent of being 5 months pregnant. It was an experience, that’s for sure…

So, during my down time I started researching nutrition again, looking for some fresh material so I could focus on the one thing I COULD control, which was my diet. I ended up revisiting ‘paleo’ but remembering that it was a little too strict for me… until I stumbled across Mark Sisson’s book “The Primal Blueprint: Reprogram Your Genes for Effortless Weightloss, Vibrant Health and Boundless Energy.” I read it cover to cover [figuratively speaking since I use an e-reader] over a weekend and started right away… And have been loving it.

Trying a New Nutritional Plan – 3.5.12

My mother started a new diet a few weeks back and was hounding me to read the book and try it along with her, but I’m so jaded about ‘diets’ that I just brushed it off and told her I wasn’t interested. Until she started throwing these random facts at me like broccoli has twice the protein, calorie for calorie, than steak. I didn’t believe her. Then she told me she’s lost 11 lbs after 2 weeks – that got my attention so I downloaded the book in my kindle since I had a gift card [and hence, it was ‘free’ to me in case it was a load of crap]. I found myself totally engrossed and I ended up reading the whole thing in 2 days and starting the plan myself last Monday. In the first week I’ve lost 5.6 lbs and I’m eating a TON of food.

The book is Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s, ‘Eat to Live‘. When I initially browsed through it at the bookstore before buying it, my first impression was that it was vegetarian propaganda. But after actually reading it I’ve realized it’s not – it just recommends eating less animal protein than the ‘standard American diet.’ [or SAD]. I didn’t think I could be satisfied eating just fruit for breakfast when I was used to having an egg with whole wheat toast, or greek yogurt with berries, but the premise of the book is that you get the most nutrients per calorie, which you’ll find in fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts and seeds – and some whole grains… and you eat higher volumes of these lower calorie foods, upping both your nutrient and fiber intake. It’s that combination of fiber and nutrients that help turn your appetite signals off via receptors in your stomach and colon, so when you fill up on the right foods, you’re not as hungry. 

Fractionated Oil??

My husband and I were discussing microwave popcorn last night – because he’s trying to cut down on his addiction to it, when I mentioned that the last time I looked, his favorite brand still had hydrogenated vegetable oil in it [“trans fat”]. He said he didn’t think so, so I grabbed the package and read off the ingredients and got mildy scared when I saw “fractionated palm oil” on the list. What the hell is ‘fractionated oil’??? I was also surprised I’d never heard of it before [I don’t eat a lot of processed foods, so I just never came across a label that had that on there, I guess…]. I had to wonder if it was the next version of hydrogenated oil, just named cleverly to fool us ‘idiot consumers’ [yes, I’m a bit paranoid, but shouldn’t we all be? lol]

Turns out all it means is, palm oil [originating either in Africa or in the US] is a very healthy oil. It’s high in saturated fats, but it’s also high in antioxidants and vitamin E. Great, right? Not so fast… when they fractionate it, they heat it so that the oil separates into 2 parts: oil that has lower and higher melting point. Then they skim off the stuff that has the higher melting point, which is more stable, much like trans fats used to be and discard the rest. They use this oil in a lot of baked goods, confections containing chocolate – and microwave popcorn. Commonly used oils are palm oil, palm kernel oil and coconut oil. Both Palm and coconut oils are very healthy and great to cook with if you can find it [Trader Joe’s carries coconut oil which I use in place of vegetable oil – it has very little flavor, so it’s perfect when you don’t want your oil to interrupt the flavors of whatever you’re using it for…]. Palm kernel oil is oil they get from pressing the pit of the palm fruit – which doesn’t really have much nutrition in it to start with, but it’s much harder to get oil from the pit than it is from the fleshy, pulpy fruit itself. 

So, what’s the bottom line? 

The good news: This fractionated variety of oil is NOT half a step away from being straight-up plastic like hyrogenated oils were and does not appear to cause cancer like trans fats do.

The bad news: The fractionation process pretty much strips any health benefits from palm oil, rendering it [pun intended] void of nutrition, and you’re left with just a bunch of saturated fat… which many believe to be one of the causes of heart disease. 

So, if you have to have your popcorn, fractionated palm oil won’t cause cancer, but it could add to your waistline or the walls of your arteries. I, personally don’t think saturated fats are that bad. They’re very stable and they’re a nice, slow source of energy. Too much of anything is bad for you, so I apply the same rule to saturated fats… I also believe that there’s a much higher risk of coronary disease if you have sugar issues. If your blood sugar is too high for too long [unchecked insulin resistance or pre-diabetes to full blown type 2], the sugar corrodes your artery walls, then your body sends in the cholesterol as a sort of spackle, to try and patch the damage so the walls can heal – but cholesterol is sticky and things like saturated fats can stick to it and form a sort of microscopic barricade in your artery as it sticks to itself, as well. If you have normal sugar levels, no need for cholesterol patching, and the increased risk of heart disease from eating saturated fats goes away. All things in moderation… I’m not giving up steak anytime soon, and as long as I keep my sugar nice and balanced, I shouldn’t have to. 

As for fractionated oils – I’m glad they came up with a more natural way of stabilizing oils for processed food, but I won’t be eating it anytime soon. I’m just glad that if my hubby decided to have some microwave popcorn when we watch a movie, he’s not eating a measured dose of cancer-causing plastic. Now, I am by no means a doctor, I just do a LOT of reading on this sort of thing and have come to my own conclusions. I’m not recommending anything, just stating what I think, pertaining to my own diet [and concern for my husband’s]. I think we all should know more about what we put into our bodies so we can make our own educated decisions about what we’re willing to subject our bodies too – or at least understand the consequences if we choose to eat something unhealthy anyway…

Photo credit: Novatek Filtration, Sweden

Eat With Your Eyes

Or in my case, the camera. I get so inspired by the colors of fruits and vegetables. And food in general. My husband thinks I’m nuts sometimes – I’m constantly taking pictures of our fruit bowl, or the food I’m preparing. lol… If I had time, I’d paint this particular arrangement. I only took up photography years ago to snap shots of things that inspired me to want to paint at a later date… but life got busy. So I kept taking pictures. It makes me happy.  =)

Now the challenge becomes eating all that beautiful fruit before it spoils. I actually managed it last week, but this week I went more tropical with the pineapple, coconut, mangos and star fruit. We used to pick star fruits off the neighbor’s tree when we’d visit my Grandparents in Florida. Such a cool-looking and distinctive-tasting fruit. I’ll have to look it up and see if it has any interesting benefits beyond the usual vitmins, etc. 

Interestingly… they say that overweight people eat more with their eyes than their stomachs – in that they eat what they see vs. paying attention to what their body is telling them [been there]. I read about a study where people were blindfolded and asked to eat a meal – they found they ate 22% less than if they weren’t blindfolded. Similarly, people who see how much they’ve already eaten, right in front of them [wing bones during a superbowl party, for example] at 27% less. So, tables that aren’t bused so quickly can be better for your calorie intake. 

What does this all mean? Well, for me – I don’t mind eating more of something if it’s colorful – ie: full of fruits and veggies. I think serving food ‘family style’ is better, too – because you can put a little on your plate and eat it and take a little more if you aren’t satisfied, but the reminder of what you’re eating is still in front of you, vs. stacking up a plate full of food and bringing it to the table and scoffing it all down. 

In the end, I’m sure many of us have trouble NOT eating everything on our plates. I don’t know if it’s just a built-in behavior of being a human being, or conditioning from being told nightly about the starving children in China or Africa. Either way, I’m slowly accepting that finishing what’s on my plate when I’m no longer hungry isn’t any different than just throwing out what I can’t finish [if it’s not worth saving]. It all ends up in the same place eventually – or on my hips. No thanks. I am NOT a trash can.  ;)

Thoughts: 8.31.08

I just finished working out and boy, was it tough. I hadn’t done a real workout since Wednesday, so I half expected as much. I feel good now, though. If I don’t workout in more than 3 days my mood goes south pretty fast. Depression runs in my family [not just your average blues… melancholic, suicidal nastiness…], so exercise, for me, is like taking preventative medicine – without the toxic chemicals. I’ve read studies that show that even small amounts of exercise on a daily basis are as, or more effective than a daily dose of a common anti-depressant like Prozac or Zoloft. It really is amazing what a difference exercise makes. My husband noticed my mood change yesterday. I was tired, bored, unmotivated… nothing excited me [where normally it takes very little to make me happy – I’m generally an optimistic person], and the worst part of it is, everything SEEMS difficult, which makes starting anything – exercise included – difficult. 

One, good workout is all it takes to reset my brain and all is right in the world again.  =)

To read this great article on the correlation between exercise and depression, click here: Exercise Keeps Your Psyche Fit on PsychologyMatters.org

Image Credit: Artwork by Christos Magganas via GoGreenDude.com

Kiwi Fruit

I just ate some kiwi with a little Greek yogurt [that I strained myself using regular yogurt, since I ran out of the Greek stuff], and drizzled a touch of honey over the top. So delicious! I knew kiwi was good for me, but I didn’t know how good until I just did some reading. Turns out kiwi are not only full of protective antioxidents, they’re full of phytonutrients that have been shown to protect DNA. They’re not sure how yet, but scientists believe it goes beyond their large amounts of common antioxidents like Vitamin C – a kiwi has 95% of your recommended daily value, more than an orange has [by weight]. Another interesting factoid about kiwi is that it’s antioxident power gets stronger as it ripens, so it’s worth waiting for them to naturally ripen at room temperature to reap the full benefits. They also get sweeter as they ripen so it’s also worth it from a flavor standpoint. 

Uses:

I like eating kiwi on their own, right out of their ‘shell’ like a soft-boiled egg [slice off the top and enjoy with a grapefruit spoon], or I peel and slice them up to eat with yogurt or as part of a fruit salad. They add awesome color to any fruit salad with their pop of emerald green. I have a feeling they’d also lend themselves well to a fresh salsa – and since I have several kiwi on hand this week, I just may try that. 

For more information, check out this fantastic website where I go for quick info on different foods and their health benefits: WHFoods: Kiwi

Image credit: NutritionousFruit.com

Supermassive Black Holes

I’ve been watching a lot of the Science Channel lately – we have it in HD now and it’s my new, favorite thing! I’m an artist by trade, but I have always loved math and science. It was tough deciding what to do with my life as a result. lol… So now I do the design thing for a living, and satisfy my ‘science tooth’ with TV and reading, which works out well. 

So, yesterday, I watched a program on Supermassive Black Holes [which happens to be my favorite Muse song… hee hee], and was fascinated by the fact that every galaxy has one in the center, and in all likelihood, rather than being only a super destructive force, they’re also responsible for creating all physical matter and life as we know it. Go figure. Watching it all unfold, it had the same effect on me that sitting on the beach in front of a choppy sea does. It made me feel small, and my problems smaller. Not that I have much to complain about these days. I really don’t. Everyone has ups and downs, crazy relatives and daily struggles as part of being a member of human society, but overall, things are really good. And I find myself wanting to know one thing: What came first, the supermassive black hole, or the gaseous cloud? lol… 

I remember being very little and thinking along the lines of…”our planet is in the solar system, which is in the Milky Way galaxy, which is in the Universe…” But when I’d try to think of what was beyond the Universe itself, every single time my brain would literally go “TILT” and I’d get a headache. lol… and as I got older I decided it was okay to leave some things a mystery. I don’t need to know everything to enjoy my life. But if someone else figures out the answers – I still want to know.  =)

So… you’re probably wondering ‘how do these black holes relate to diet and exercise?’ Well… I guess it’s just a matter of perspective for me. Not all ominous things [or crappy situations or circumstances] are bad. Sure, a black hole could swallow everything in our galaxy up, us included. But without it, we wouldn’t be here in the first place. Kind of like the saying those crazy movie moms used to say from time to time, “I brought you into this world… I can take you out!” lol…

For me, I relate this to… if I hadn’t had all the [crappy] experiences I’ve had up until now, or the genetics that make it more difficult for me to lose weight – or if I didn’t have a weight problem – I probably wouldn’t be so interested in diet and exercise and I may not have lived as long, or as healthy a life as I plan on doing now. I do believe everything happens for a reason. In the end, there’s very little I take for granted. I’ve been through a lot, I’ve worked through a lot, I’ve learned a lot [like many of us. I’m not special]. I’ve had to work hard for everything in my life, so why should getting healthy be any different? In the end, when you have to work hard for something, you appreciate it that much more than the next guy [or gal], right? And besides, the very phrase ‘weight problem’ infers there there is, in fact a ‘solution’! As long as the learning part never stops, things will always look up, no matter how bad they may seem at the moment.

The other analogy to draw from is, when looking at a supermassive black hole, it sucks matter in on one end, and spits it out on the other. You could say it’s destroying what it’s sucking in, but in doing so, causing all the friction and heat within the gases that surround it, it’s initiating the reactions that all life came from. Like any problem, you can either focus on just the negative, or you can look at it as a whole [no pun intended], and choose to focus on the good that will come of it. What I want to know is – where does all that stuff go – does it come out the other end and start life there too? Does that mean there are Universes on top of Universes and these supermassive black holes are the doorways? [TILT]… ouch… ;)

Image: An artist’s impression of the accretion disc around the supermassive black hole that powers an active galaxy. (Image credit: NASA / Dana Berry, SkyWorks Digital) via University of Leicester, Department of Physics and Astronomy

Eating or Drinking Cold Foods or Beverages…

I read a whole book on this subject a while back and although I don’t remember hard evidence to suggest if eating or drinking cold things excessively will absolutely cause obesity, I thought it was worth looking into. The book I’m referring to is The Hot Diet: The Real Reason You’re Gaining Weight . . . and How to Lose It Fast and Forever (Hardcover) by AJ Djo. There were some interesting facts that were hard to ignore – which may or may not just be coincidence… the most interesting one to me being that we, in America [US and Canada] use ice in almost every cold beverage we drink, all day long. The rest of the world doesn’t and we happen to be the ‘fattest’ people on the planet. 

Supposedly, when you have an ice-cold drink with a meal, it can actually numb your stomach enough that it may delay the satiety signal, causing you to eat more than you would if you were drinking a room-temp or hot beverage. I remember hearing the story that that’s why restaurants always keep your ice water glass full – to get you to eat more. Then there’s the fact that if a meal isn’t hot, it comes out of the fridge, ice cold – salads, fruits, dairy, etc., but in most other countries they don’t refrigerate produce and they eat non-hot meals at room temperature instead of ice cold. 

I’m sure ice cold anything is a pretty big shock to the system and can cause your body to use extra calories to regulate itself – which you would think would make you thinner. But if you’re hungry, it’s because your brain needs fuel, and if the calories you’re taking in are going to balancing your body’s temperature, then your brain would theorhetically tell you to eat more and send out even stronger hunger signals, which could maybe lead to overeating…

The Power of the Mind…

I just read an article by Julian Dibbell on the New York Times website about his experience with a Calorie Restricted diet for 9 weeks [The full article is HERE if you’d like to read it yourself]. I’ve read about Calorie Restriction [CR] before, and how in lab mice their lifespans sometimes doubled on a calorie restricted diet, so I can see the allure of it with humans. It’s not the same as say, Anorexia – you eat enough calories to survive and it becomes a game of getting the most nutrition possible within your calorie allotment vs. just plain old starvation. But it means weighing everything and accounting for EVERY calorie you put in your mouth. 

I happened to watch a show last night on the Science Channel that I had recorded about the human mind and all the ways it works to keep us alive, even in the most dangerous, life-threatening situations. One of the examples they used was of a man that fell into a cave and couldn’t find a way out. He was alone in the dark for over 3 weeks or so. He found water, but there wasn’t any food to be had, so they demonstrated with fancy 3D effects, what happens to the body and what the brain does to ensure survival – including cannibalizing it’s own body to stay alive. This man lost over 40 lbs of fat and muscle in the 3 weeks he was down there, but it kept him alive, and one of the theories behind how was a specific chemical the brain releases during starvation that slows every process in the body down. And in so doing, can remarkably prolong life. So, if we can keep ourselves on the brink of starvation, it is assumed we can live much longer.