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Have you heard about the Primal Diet or the Primal Lifestyle (aka Paleo) ?

This is a new popular term for something that is actually very old- eating and attempting to simulate the life of our ancient paleolithic ancestors of from maybe 100,000 years ago  up until the agricultural revolution.  This is the period in which our bodies and brains developed, and is the lifestyle for which we are built. Although we have had agriculture in Northern Europe since around 3000 BC (it was developed in the Middle East 10,000 years ago) the mass consumption of grains is really a far newer development. Grains were not that easy to harvest and consequently less available in the days before industrial production; and the grains themselves were quite different than  the ones we consume today. Hence, the diets of our ancestors were far more focused on meat, fat,  and vegetables and far less on starches (aka carbohydrates). It is for the meat, fat,  and vegetable diet that we are built.

Also, our ancient ancestors didn’t spend their days doing daily one hour cardio workouts. They sat around a lot, walked a bunch, and then did short bursts of intense exercise- as in chasing an animal for a few minutes at a time. This is the kind of exercise we are built for.

These ideas are heavily supported by modern research in nutrition. Many of the ideas we have been programmed with- such as the anti-fat and pro-carbohydrate diets- are turning out to be almost completely incorrect. Since beginning to follow these modern diet ideas (since the 1970s) our levels of chronic illness and obesity have skyrocketed- and heart disease hasn’t gotten any better. The ideas were just plain wrong. Diet ideas before the 1950s were much more like the Primal Diet; and exercise was a lot more like the short exercise ideas- pre-aerobics and Jim Fixx running addictions.

I suggest that you look up  the Primal (or Paleo Diet) and also look up the accompanying trend of short burst/intensive exercise- such as PACE or Crossfit. Believe it or not- these ideas are absolutely science based and work.

It will be very hard to believe it when you read about it since it is so opposite to everything we have been raised to believe- but it’s the way things were viewed until the last40 years and we all know how well that has worked out.