No, I didn't have a heart attack. This post is rather about the fear of a heart attack. Many of you may already know but others may not, so I will begin at the.....beginning. Good place to start things usually. My health and fitness has been an on again off again and again kind of thing over the years. Especially dietary considerations. It's probably a habit I started oh so many years ago in high school. Being a three sport person most years, our football coach "required" us to go out for track if we didn't play baseball, I could eat damn near anything I wanted and not gain much weight. Decent genetics, youth and constant exercise combining to make a perfect storm of easily maintained skinnyness. Basic training in 1990 kept up the trend. Enter college and much beer and much less exercise. The pounds came on rather easily. If I got a little heavy, I'd hit the gym or rugby season would roll around and voila, back in some semblence of shape other than round. And so it has been for many years. I'd add a few pounds, lose a few pounds, be active in sports, not so active, do outdoorsy stuff, sit behind a desk, always the push and pull stumbling along into my 30's and now nearing my 40's. The one thing that never changed really were the basic dietary guidelines. Lots of grains, good lean meats, fruits and vegetables in unlimited quantities and avoid the fatty fat fat as much as possible. This was always the mantra, never fully realized in my life, I love fried chicken too much, but still in the back of my mind everytime I lifted a fork or spoon to my lips.
In walks paleo/primal. This is the idea that many ancient cultures, especially those before agricuture, lived on meat and fat and our bodies developed and adapted to this diet with very few exceptions for millenia, since original sin in the Garden of Eden or since the first men tread on terra firma depending on your personally held beliefs. That ancient code of fuel preference lives on in our genes. Our bodies are great machines able to run on many different and diverse foods (fuels) as evident by our omnivorent status. But also like a multifuel vehicle, if you run long enough on substandard fuel (high carb/sugar), eventually you'll gum up the works. This is the premise behind Paleo/primal. I've read about it for years, always kind of considering it's value but afraid of crossing that oh so indoctrined food pyramid of my youth so deftly held up by the big wide all powerful grain base. Having grandfathers with unhappy tickers and the words of Billy Crystal from 'CitySlickers' "you can't have bacon at every meal", I was always hesitant. The Adkins craze didn't help either. Watching folks shed dozens of pounds in months just to watch it creep back on slowly surely doggedly, sad but predictable. So when Hollie started doing paleo on a limited basis, I watched carefully. Granted she broke her max carb set limit often so the weight came off slowly but then she did a 'paleo challenge'. 45 days of meat and fat. Her body fat melted away. I was impressed by her new physique. So I read and read and read some more. Hours devoted to reading the differing hypotheses. Then it jumped off the page at me. The solution, the reasoning, the reality. Paleo/Primal/Adkins. These weren't meant to be diets. Not short term solutions. Not a craze or fad, but real lifelong dietary changes. Give up pasta, give up breads, give up rice, give up potatoes and corn, give up sugar, give up sweets and batter dipped foods for the rest of your life. Make them a once a month or once a season treat at most. Fear them like the plague they were to ancient peoples and still are to us. Too much of a good thing is, well you know the saying.
Yes. Pancakes taste good. Yes. Light flaky croissants are food of the gods. But all great works require sacrifice. Require loss. Require persistent effort.
I thought it might be easier to be paleo in Alaska. Lots of large hooved herbivores walking around. Damn legislation, damn rules. Why can't I just walk around gnawing on caribou and moose? Who says!! A license to fish, really, in Alaska?! Why!! Lately, it's been a lot of eggs, bacon and sausage, breakfast steaks and humburgers without buns, oh and protein shakes. Not the most exciting diet, but it's working at least in part, along with lifting, slight calorie reduction and a mixed bag of cardio and aerobic activity daily. Which is most important, who knows? How long will it last, I'd like to say forever, but only time will tell. Some would say that all of life is an experiment to find out what works for us. We'll see if this works for me, so far so good. Right now I say, bring on the bunson burner and porkchops, heart attacks be damned. Beef, it's what's for dinner!!
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