Paleo Quick Tip Of The Day

This seems like a kind of crazy title for a podcast, but I really started thinking about this today: Most Americans no longer cook!  They buy fast food, they buy processed food to heat up, they order pizzas galore, and they go out to restaurants…  But they rarely ever actually cook a meal!   I know, Thanksgiving has come and gone, and most people (I hope, at least!) still cook a traditional dinner.  My daughter and son-in-law cooked a great one- all of the traditional turkey and stuffing, cranberries, and the guests like us and our in-law and fellow grandparents all brought side dishes.  The stuffing was gluten free, made of cauliflower and other veggies, as was the gravy.  It was fantastic!    Actually, the traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner is quite paleo, including mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes, salads, and all the rest… you just need to use actual, real-food ingredients like they used in any time before the 1970’s— real pastured butter and sour cream, real non-GMO vegetables, a pastured turkey, a

Like everything in Paleo land, we do things differently. It seems that the conventional, standard American diet does everything exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. They eat wheat and grain, not only do they eat them, but seem to almost bathe in grain products, day and night! Doughnuts and cereal for breakfast, sandwiches at almost every meal, pizza and crackers- the list just goes on and on. Wheat is the worst, what with all of its anti-nutrients and propensity to compromise our guts. But then, throw in all the other carbs everyone in America consumes, things like chips, and doodles, cakes and pies and french fries…we are swimming in a sea of carbs! Now, I’m not totally anti-carb- far from it. Depending on your activity level and body fat levels, good carbs like sweet potatoes and white potatoes are wonderful additions to your diet. Especially if you load them up with pastured butter and real sour cream, also from pastured animals. Think of carbs like this as fuel for your perfectly paleo exe

I am late with this weekly podcast of Paleo Quick Tip of the Day, which usually comes out on each and every Wednesday- but I have a good reason!  My wife and I have been caring for our 14 month old grandson and, although it was truly a joy to have him in the house and yard for four days and nights, it is also- a lot of work!   If you have a little one or more, you know what I am saying is true.  Little children take about all you can give them, and if you are doing a good job of nurturing,  just about all of your time as well.   The other demands of daily life just continue, and so to add in a baby is just lots of work and very tiring.    Now hopefully we all know just how important a good night’s sleep is in a paleo lifestyle!  It is right up there in importance with cutting gluten and grains, eating nutrient dense foods, and avoiding processed and fast foods- right up there at the top of the list.  So, if you have a baby to care for, I recommend your double down on your rest and sleep- when they sleep, you

I have heard this time and again- “You know, I try to eat right- I even make your green smoothies and feel healthier for it. I exercise religiously. But I think this gluten thing doesn’t apply to me- I’m immune!” Not true. If you have never been off of gluten, and I mean you’ve never really followed through and eliminated bread products, even in relatively small amounts, from your diet for at least a month or two, you have no idea how much better you can “look, feel, and perform”, to quote Robb Wolf. You may think that because you are not overweight, reasonably well muscled and fit, why then why not continue eating your sandwiches, and pancakes, and occasional slice of pie or cake? Well, do you have any of these symptoms that may seem minor (at first!), that are almost certainly due to your gluten habit? 1. Joint pain 2. Either diarrhea and/or constipation 3. Depression or anxiety 4. Brain fog 5. Headaches or migraines 6. ADHD type behavior 7. Insomnia 8. Abdominal distress 9. Hemorrhoids 10. Chronic Fatigue

Most of us know by now how great the paleo type of diet and lifestyle is for your body- I mean, your fat stores shrink drastically as you become a “fat burner” as opposed to a “sugar burner”, and your health literally explodes as you provide your body with vital nutrients instead of harmful substances like processed foods, chemicals, and gluten. Throw in a little exercise, good sleep, and harmonious tribal relationships with family and friends, and Mr. or Ms. Paleo is looking very healthy and happy indeed! I hope that this is you, and that you have most of your paleo routine figured out, and blended in with your everyday life. But have you considered your dental health? Back in paleo times, the health of your mouth and teeth was pretty much a given, since the food available to you was so nutritious, and not harmful to your health, as is much of the stuff we label as food today. Even now, wild animals have excellent dental health, and I guarantee they don’t brush or floss. Step one in modern dental health i

Stretching is vital for your health.  This is true whether you are an athlete or not- if you start to lose flexibility and strength in your back and shoulders, you will also lose mobility, and be cursed with pain!   This is your body scolding you for not taking care of it.  If you feel pain, you are either doing too much physically, like overtraining or training with too heavily, or else you are doing too little.  No matter which side you come down on, I know how you can fix it- by stretching.  But not just with static stretching, where you stretch and hold for time, although that is good as well.  You need weighted stretching.    And, it need not be time consuming, since I am talking about only two simple weighted stretches to “bullet proof” your body, and strengthen and stretch at the same time the two most commonly pain riddled sites of the human body- your back, and your shoulders.   So here goes- for the back, and I mean the entire back musculature that surrounds and supports the spine itself, you need t

When you talk about exercise in the usual paleo circles, ala crossfit etc., the mantra is to “lift heavy things!” The idea that you must lift heavy, meaning heavy weights on barbell back squats, deadlifts, and presses is a given. Well, I am here to say that it is not necessary, and never has been. It is not the weight lifted that is important, it is the muscular contraction intensity that counts! This can be achieved very well with isometrics, for example, without moving a muscle at all under weight, and so perfectly safely. For no matter what someone else tells you- lifting weights under heavy loads is extremely dangerous, and actually inevitably damaging to the joints, tendons and ligaments. For a testament from an expert, what does the now aged Arnold Schwarzenegger have to say about heavy back squats? “ I always have done each body part three times a week, with the idea being to train six days a week. But when you average it out it ends up being five days a week. You know, there are weeks when you’re sick

Injury is inevitable, unfortunately. It is part of the human condition. If you train properly, using body weight, perfectly paleo types of exercise, you won’t become injured from that. UNLESS you overdo it, which can always happen. Overuse is the number one cause of injuries- just look at me! A few weeks back I posted about being injured from an overuse injury, painting a barn of a garage for just too many hours, and inflaming the bursa in my shoulder. I also did other jobs that overworked that same joint, and the result has been a few weeks of rehab. I used the occasion to research what worked and what didn’t, so here we go my paleo friends! First of all, remember that it is not the end of the world. If you work out each and every day as I do, (and as I recommend for all creatures that exist on this earth), it is really irksome to have one part of your body that just…hurts. But, you just work around it- you exercise other parts of your body, and only work the hurting part through a limited range of motion (i

One rather simple and easy method for both controlling your weight and also vastly increasing your health simultaneously is with fasting! Simply by limiting your eating window to a set amount of hours per day- say 6 am to 6 pm, you will eat less, without really consciously trying. If you then eliminate snacks, & go to just three meals in that allotted time span, that is another step forward! From there, you can gradually “up the ante” by further compressing that eating window. You can either eat from 8 am to 6 pm, for a 10 hr window, or skip breakfast, & only eat from 11am to 6pm, with a 7 hour window. You can do this gradually, & it seems very natural- not a hardship at all really. What really seems like a hardship to me is the conventional thought, which recommends 6 meals per day (constant grazing) with endless snacks- talk about unnatural! For the vast majority of our evolutionary past, being without food was the norm. It is what our bodies expect as a general rule, and it is what we thrive on

000002EA 00000002 000063D2 00001EB9 00001039 00001778 00007E21 00007A33 00015BDB 00015BDB Another rather inflammatory podcast from PaleoJay! Guns are Paleo?! Yes, they are; let me explain. With all the national rhetoric about outlawing guns and the 2nd amendment, I have to violently disagree. Every time that guns are taken away, crime goes up dramatically. Look at Chicago, and actually any major city in the U.S.- they all have strict gun laws, and at the same time have out of control crime! So, the logic seems to be to make the gun laws even stricter, and then we will have even more out of control crime. If I was a criminal, it would be my fondest hope to disarm everyone who I might victimize. Easy pickings, what could be better? I would also want everyone to be physically very weak, and unable to defend themselves in any way. I’d want them all to be sickly, and so easy to rob or kill that I would hardly have to try. Let’s take the analogy further: if I was the federal government, and I wanted a compliant pop

We all know what it’s like when all is going great- morning workout, great breakfast with a green paleo smoothie and coffee with coconut oil and cinnamon, cloves and chocolate powder- and then off to a productive day! Life can be wonderful… But, it can also be quite stressful, as we all know. I know personally, because I got injured! While not the end of the world, injuries can be very stressful, both mentally and physically. Just know that injuries are, periodically, a real part of leading an authentic, athletic life. Just sequestering yourself and perpetually “being careful” about your body is a fast track to the nursing home- our bodies expect, and need to be stressed, and to do hard things at the very edge of our abilities! In my case, I just overworked. This is the same as overtraining, which I have seen time and again- someone gets good results with strength training, and thinks “Hey- if I just do even more I’ll be awesome!” Well, then they wind up with black and blue bruises on their triceps, or wherev

Yes, my friend, White Willow Bark is really the only drug that I can wholeheartedly recommend! It has really no side effects, is very effective, and can be used without reservation. It works for headache, muscle or joint pain- almost anything really, that most folks have been resorting to aspirin, ibuprofen, and tylenol for. (Along with more potent drugs with more damaging side effects!) The good news is this: white willow bark is very, very effective, has virtually no side effects, and is inexpensive. Let us compare white willow bark to Tylenol, the supposedly safe aspirin substitute: “acetaminophen [Tylenol] poisoning now accounts for at least 42% of U.S. acute liver failure cases seen at tertiary-care centers [large hospitals] and one third of the deaths.” Isn’t that awful? How about the old standby, aspirin? “No conventionally used prophylactic Aspirin™ regimen seems free of the risk of peptic ulcer complications,” said the British Medical Journal. Aspirin always made me sick to my stomach! Rightfully so,

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I know this sounds a little weird- why and how do you make yourself into a Diesel?  Well, what I mean by diesel is rock solid, powerful, healthy, and vital!  Sound better?   The reason I bring this up, is that almost everyone is indoctrinated into the “germ theory”, which is that advocated by Louis Pasteur so long ago.  The germ theory stated that- it only we could eliminate germs, protect ourselves at all costs from all pathogens and “bad guys” in the environment, then we’d be OK!   And so, we started pasteurizing all of our dairy, our pickles and other fermented foods, and cooked and processed every food we came into contact with to death.    “Voila!” as Louis would say- “Now, ve vill be healthy and happy forevermore- viva la France!!”    Or some such thing.  This theory won out, over the terrain theory of contemporary Frenchman Claude Bernard, who asserted that germs and pathogens sought out diseased tissue, and then invaded there- healthy, disease free bodily tissues could easily resist these invasions, a

Sometimes we lose sight of reality, and go down blind alleys in pursuit of health and fitness.  The Olympic Games springs to mind, as they are on right now.  As do professional sports of all kinds- they are a form of specialization, and the public idolizes sports heroes as archetypes of fitness and health!   Nothing could be further from the truth.  Specializing in any sport, to the point where you are competitive on a world wide, or even a national level, will compromise and damage your health to a huge degree!  Did you know that NFL players build their health in the off season, and then destroy their bodies and health over the playing season, by playing their sport?  Oh, and the average lifespan of a professional football player?  Mid 50’s.    Hey, I would already be dead!  Now, I know there is a lot of money and glory involved in being a pro football player, but my point is that health and fitness are not a part of it.  The point is, if you specialize in a particular sport, be it running, swimming, gymnast

Like in many things, we have all been brainwashed over the past few decades, brainwashed into   1. Eating a low fat, high carb, high grain and sugar based diet 2. Signing off on our precious health to medical clinics and doctors   These two things will do more harm to your health than good, and are symptomatic of the evil that has been done to our society.   I hope you know by now, from listening to this podcast and others about Paleo and Ancestral health, that a low fat, grain and sugar based diet is slow suicide.  This way of eating, coupled with an idea that more movement and activity and less calories will somehow save you from modern diseases, is delusional.  You need real foods: God made foods- fats, pastured meats and dairy, seafood like sardines, and tons of vegetables with a few fruits thrown in will build your health from the inside out!   Keep it up, and you won’t need medical doctors and clinics, and actually, as in days of old, you should avoid them like the plague whenever you can.    For women:

I am an old adopter of the Superslow exercise protocol, as advanced years ago by Ken Hutchins.  This was a 10 seconds up on an exercise (or positive motion), and 5 seconds down (negative).  Of course, this was in my olden days of training with weights, back in the early 1980’s…  I did make rather amazing progress using this protocol, but the bad effects of training with heavy weights were still apparent- I had blocky, chunky kinds of muscle, with a big butt from heavy squats and deadlifts, a chronically sore back from overloading the bar for those heavy squats, and a protruding gut, again from the squats and deadlifts.  In addition, my shoulders were in pretty constant inflammation from heavy bench pressing, as were my elbows.   I switched to body weight exercise, which I term Perfectly Paleo Exercise, and rejuvenated myself in my 50’s.  I do high rep pushups, which actually put the shoulders through a full, natural range of motion, unlike the bench press.  I do virtual resistance, as I have described numerou

I have had a very, very busy few days, and thus need to apologize to you, my paleolithic friend, for not getting my weekly PQTD podcast done in time! Usually, it’s every Wednesday. But, here it is at last, and better late than never, aye? Firstly, my excuses: I have been off to our families’ vacation log cabin, deep in the woods of Wisconsin. A truly unique and lovely place, rustic, cool, and peaceful. My brother, who at 63 is one year my junior, has bought the house and land just next door- his land adjoins that of the family cabin land, and this is perfect! We had met there to do work on his land, which included cutting tons of brush, dead trees, weed trees needing removal, mowing and trimming, and more. We spent one solid day doing all of this, and getting both properties into good order, at least so far as the land goes. (If you have never done it, it is amazing how much physical work in involved in keeping up even a rather small parcel of wooded or country land!! Trees are always falling, blocking trails

Boy, will I ruffle some feathers with this one!  Well, that’s fine: I have never been either politically correct, or a moderate “flip-flopper” like so many…   I watched the Democratic Party Convention for awhile last night, and it was… horrendous.  There was NO American flag, but a Syrian one and rainbow flags all in evidence.  It turns out that the Dems have abandoned actual working people, and have become a party of privileged elites, with  welfare and illegal immigrant votes to prop it all up.  I waited and waited to hear what Bernie Sanders would say, since he had been conned by Hillary and the rest of the elite, ruling democrats to believe that he and his supporters had a chance at getting the presidential nomination.  I waited, and all the rest of us waited, and waited… the elite Dems purposely waited until about 11 PM central time to put him on, and so I, and all the rest of Paleo People (not to mention the stoned Bernie supporters and all people who actually had to go to work the next day) were asleep

One of the biggest deterrents to someone actually doing the exercise that their body is crying out for is this: they think they need to join a gym (expensive and intimidating to the uninitiated), and then of course they have to find the time to get there.  Driving over, getting into your special workout clothes, waiting in lines to use fancy machines or heavy weights on supports and on benches covered with the previous users sweat… and music you may hate is often blaring at you, and lines of folks peddle away on bicycle trainers, going nowhere, watching TV…   Doesn’t sound too appealing, does it?  And so, unsurprisingly, most people simply give it all up, and say “I just walk!” when the subject of exercise comes up.  While walking is fine, most people just walk really fast for exercise (this is silly and unproductive- walking is not meant to be rushed!), and then drive the rest of the time when they are not on their 1/2 hour really fast, dorky looking walk through the mall or the neighborhood.   So, I will ag