#and I can’t stress enough that I don’t even feed grain free to my animals so this isn’t even relevant

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

you really admitted to feeding your pet Rachel Ray brand while discouraging people from using vet approved brands huh

Yes, anon. Because that is the food my veterinarian recommended for my dogs, you ninny.

this is what I feed my dogs, again, something discussed with my vet, who I would imagine knows more about pet nutrition than you do.

[probablyafish]

The problem with Pit Bulls

This is not an anti-pitbull post. As soon as any dog expert brings up this topic, people seem to either ignore it or shit all over you. This is purely educational, because people are still being attacked by pitbulls and they still don’t understand why. The whole “bad owners, not bad dogs” movement has, in my opinion, created more of a disaster for the breed than good. That movement has given people the mindset that you can erase hundreds of years of genetic conditioning with extreme amounts of affection. When all that affection does is make dogs that are predisposed to aggression, very anxious.  

First of all, the number one thing that people don’t seem to realize, is that the term “Pit Bull” is used to describe a mixed breed dog of bully breed origin. 

This is the only breed that can be rightfully called a “Pit Bull”, the American Pit Bull Terrier. Any other breed than this is not a pit bull. 

This is the breed that was created in England to bait bulls. This is the breed that was created with such aggression by breeding dogs with the most dominant and aggressive traits, that it would continue fighting even with severe injuries. This is the breed that is is directly dangerous (that is if they are pure). They were bred by crossing the Olde English Terrier, with the bulky and already dangerous Old English Bulldog. 

After bull baiting was outlawed, they were brought over to America for dog fighting, protection, and cattle driving (even though underground dog fighting rings still exist). Pure APBTs are nearly impossible to keep together without dominance issues. However, just because these dogs are genetically aggressive, does not mean they can’t be kept as companions in stress free households.

As long as the owner knows the breed history, handles the dog safely, gives them the much needed exercise, and gives them plenty of safe socialization, they can keep their aggression from developing into adulthood. This breed is very quick to revert back through stress and lack of exercise, which is where bites and attacks stem from, because dogs today rarely get enough stimulation or proper training. This breed is not for the unmotivated, and should not be in a household with children, as children produce a high energy that disturbs dogs. Pure coat colors are tan and white, or brindle. 

Other bully breeds that get mistaken for the APBT include:  The American Staffordshire Terrier

This is a breed that is linked genetically to the APBT, as it is a byproduct of cross breeding it for more strength, body mass, relaxed face, and coat color. However, in America, this breed had more use with hunting, farm life, and guarding, instead of blood sports. This stimulation through the breed’s development over a hundred years created a dog with a much more sociable and family oriented demeanor. With less of an ability to become aggressive through stress and lack of stimulation. Pure coat colors include everything from tan and white, heavy brindle, to grey and white. 

The Staffordshire Bull Terrier

A much smaller version of previous “Pit Bull” breeds, this dog was bred specifically for companionship. It’s size and genetically friendly disposition, made it a poor hunter and guard. After the Pit Bull Terrier made its way into America for dog fighting and farming, breeders in Britain began out crossing lines with friendlier dogs to create a less intimidating and more sociable dog. In the mid 1930′s, it was recognized as a separate bully breed. Pure coat colors include grey, black and white. 

The American Bully

This is a disaster dog, as there are so many amature breeders trying them for the most bulk and muscle regardless of temperament and genetics. They were originally a Staffordshire Bull Terrier crossed with more bulky breeds such as mastiffs and American Bulldogs. They come in M, L, XL, and XXL sizes, which given their body structure and weight, makes them very susceptible to joint damage and heart failure at XL and XXL sizes. 

Hulk, the “pit bull” is the most commonly known XXL American Bully, even though his neglectful breeders label him as an American Pit Bull Terrier for publicity, which gives people the false understanding that the APBT can reach 175 lbs of (overweight) muscle. 

Of course your little pibble isn’t aggressive, he’s not a pure American Pit Bull Terrier. Of course those dogs you saw on The Dodo’s friendly pit bulls videos are not aggressive, because they are mixes from bully origin, with random traits from random breeds.

The yearly dog bite statistics

This article from 2006 says:

“A review of 82 dog bite cases at a level 1 trauma center where the breed of dog was identified concludes that attacks by pit bulls are associated with higher morbidity rates, higher hospital charges, and a higher risk of death than are attacks by other breeds of dogs.

Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People, has conducted an unusually detailed study of dog bites from 1982 to the present. (Clifton, Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada, September 1982 to November 13, 2006; click here to read it.) The Clifton study show the number of serious canine-inflicted injuries by breed. The author's observations about the breeds and generally how to deal with the dangerous dog problem are enlightening. According to the Clifton study, pit bulls, Rottweilers, Presa Canarios and their mixes are responsible for 74% of attacks that were included in the study, 68% of the attacks upon children, 82% of the attacks upon adults, 65% of the deaths, and 68% of the maimings. In more than two-thirds of the cases included in the study, the life-threatening or fatal attack was apparently the first known dangerous behavior by the animal in question. Clifton states:

If almost any other dog has a bad moment, someone may get bitten, but will not be maimed for life or killed, and the actuarial risk is accordingly reasonable. If a pit bull terrier or a Rottweiler has a bad moment, often someone is maimed or killed--and that has now created off-the-chart actuarial risk, for which the dogs as well as their victims are paying the price.”

I recommend reading up on genetics and traits according to the KennelClub

“How a dog looks and behaves is determined by a combination of the environment it lives in, the environment it has grown up in and its genetics. Environmental factors could include a dog’s diet, how much exercise it gets or the levels of hormones in the uterus it was raised in when it was an embryo. A dog’s genetics are determined before its birth and are the only way in which characteristics can be passed from parent to child. For example, a dog’s coat can be influenced by what it eats, sunlight, time of year, how short it is trimmed etc., but none of these factors will impact the coat of the puppies it has in the future, while its genes on the other hand will.”

We have to face it. As much as we hate to admit it, we are putting this breed further and further into disaster by allowing inexperienced and neglectful dog owners to breed these dogs, and pass them out to owners who aren’t willing to work with them, or just want them as a guard. Majority of dogs in the U.S. don’t get nearly enough stimulation for their breed level, and it leads to the dog getting pent up. If you walk your dog every day and feed them a good quality food, good job, you are doing it right. 

Story time! For example: Someone buys an AmStaff (or what he believes) pup from a poor breeder. The owner takes the dog out all the time as a puppy, mostly for attention. They start working 8-5 and are too tired when they get home to take the dog for a walk. They live in a small townhouse with a small yard. The dog then starts chewing, and then ripping open the couch. The owner is stressed from work, and comes home to see the dog misbehaving. He yells and smacks the dog on the butt. The dog gets stressed because he is only trying to release his energy. 

This happens several times. Eventually the dog is so unstable and goes savage when he sees strangers. The owner decides to breed his dog. He does not know that genetic testing is a thing you should do. His dog is overweight. Because he bought her from a poor breeder, she inherited the genes for hypothyroidism and PRA, and passes it on to her pups. He breeds her with a friend’s “pit bull mix” and creates a lineage of pups who not only inherited the unstable traits of one parent, but also the poor random non-pit bull genes from the mixed parent. If that pit mix is part APBT, you have a dog that can snap at any moment even with the smallest amount of stress. All it takes is a child laying on that dog when it doesn’t want to be bothered, or if you ignore the warning signs. 

Because you don’t know what the other breeds in that mix are, you are going to get pups with random traits. They could be aggressive, hyperactive, stubborn, herders, skittish, etc. 3 of the 6 pups develop hypothyroidism because both parents were carriers. The pups are all prone to aggression more than a normal AmStaff now because the parents were unstable pit mixes, and will need a lot more training to keep it in check. Future generations and mixes will now inherit the traits from these breeds. 

This is how it starts. Majority of “Pit Bull” backyard breeding in the U.S. is done by low income households in poor neighborhoods. These types of people are unable to feed their dogs a high quality grain free diet, and usually give them minimal exercise. They are usually guard dogs. Then they breed the dogs with unstable and mixed traits, and sell them to make a living. This goes on and on, creating generation after generation of dogs with an aggressive disposition, and mixed personalities. Most of which are rehomed or dumped at shelters, and the cycle continues.

No one stops these backyard breeders from breeding. It wouldn’t be so bad if they DNA tested their dogs, got registered, health tested, and then bred them only once a year during season. However, mixed pit bulls are the most backyard bred dog in the world, because of their naturally aggressive/dominant disposition; how quick they are to show it when chained on outside as a guard. 

The “bad people, not bad dogs” movement markets on this too. Majority of the people who advocate for this, don’t even know the difference between bully breeds, and protest by walking through the city with their mixed pit bulls on leashes. The same mixed pits who can be genetically predisposed to aggression thanks to poor breeding and lack of knowledge. 

Regardless of what bully breed it is, they all stem from the same story. In order to maintain a healthy companionship, the owner must be fully aware of that breed’s history and not disregard it because they are part of the “bad people not bad dogs” movement. We don’t forget that Siberian Huskies were once agile sled pullers, or that Border Collies were bred for herding sheep, so why would we forget that the APBT was bred for killing? Yes the APBT is a dangerous breed. The same as German Shepherds, Chihuahuas, Dalmatians, Tibetan Mastiffs, Dogos, Kangals, Chow Chows, Rottweilers, Dobermans, Jack Russel Terriers, Siberian Huskies, Dachshunds, etc. 

The only way to keep bully breeds from getting aggressive, attacking, and harming their reputation even further, is to ban together and abolish backyard breeding. Make it so that the only way to get a pure Amstaff or APBT, is by certifying that you are physically able to train it, socialize it, walk it every day, and understand the repercussions for crossing the bullies. Make it so that the only places to get a pup are from registered responsible breeders who have certification that their dogs are pure and within healthy breed standards. 

It’s not shocking to me when a I hear about more and more pit bull attacks. They are the most commonly backyard bred and mixed dog in the hands of people who can’t care for them properly. You are taking the aggressive APBT and tossing it’s genes in with the innocent AmStaff or other Bully, or even a random breed, and creating a lineage that can’t help but feel the instinct to attack. We are allowing dogs to be mixed and bred in the millions each year with unstable genetics and personality. 

Bullies can be great dogs if we take great care of them and give them the stimulation they need. If we ban backyard breeding, and enforce a spay/neuter law for pet owners who aren’t registered breeders; we can empty shelters, keep pets out of the hands of animal abusers, and keep each breed’s traits where they should be. 

[theramseyloft]

Pigeon domestication: Feral Pigeons are not wildlife.

There were some inaccuracies in the first post on this topic, so I’m making a new one. A second edition, if you will.

One of my followers once asked me why it was that pigeons in wildlife rehab should be held when other animals should be handled as little as possible.

I misunderstood the crap out of her question! And it took three posts to realize I had!

Injured or orphaned Wildlife in a rehab center need to be handled as little as possible to avoid imprinting onto humans. They need to be able to survive on their own, and developing the habit of asking humans for hand outs will lead it to becoming malnourished at best and get it killed for being a nuisance at worst.

Mammals in particular may be killed on approach as fearless approach of humans by a wild animal is one of the warning signs that it might have rabies, which requires brain tissue to test for.

Pigeons are not wild animals. On principal, imprinting avoidance should not apply to them.

Furthermore, it causes them a lot of harm.

Pigeons are intensely social birds! Nestlings suffer from touch starvation as intensely as a human infant and can be mentally stunted or even out right stress to death from lack of interaction.

More urgently: We are simply not capable of teaching a domestic pigeon peep to survive in the wild.

Pigeons are social and observational learners, with cognition equivalent to a human 5 year old. Like human children, pigeon squeakers are TAUGHT how to be pigeons. 

Their social structure is VERY human like! Their father takes them out on foraging trips (because mom either has or is getting ready to lay the next clutch) and teaches them where to find food, water, and nest materials, what to eat, where to shelter, and how to interact with other pigeons. How and when to defer to the status of older established flock mates to avoid a fight and how and when to stick up for themselves to make sure they get their fair share of resources.

Songbirds and nearly all other columbids kick their kids out as soon as they are self feeding and they either make it or they don’t. Their parents will chase them out if they come back.

Feral Pigeons only leave their families if the flock has grown too large for local resources to support. 

Truthfully, orphaned feral pigeons do not belong in wildlife rehab at all. Pet shelters should be set up for them. 

Feral Pigeons are not wild animals. Imprinting avoidance should not apply to them any more than it should apply to an orphaned puppy.

Feral puppies don’t get raised among fox kits or coyote or wolf pups at a wildlife rehab and sent out for release “into the wild”.

Seriously. Take a moment to consider the following scenario:

A shelter gets an orphaned or injured puppy. They bottle feed it until it can reliably feed itself, heal it’s injuries, and clean out its parasites.

And then they return that just weaned, newly healthy puppy to the alley from whence it came.

How many of you, of you actually saw this happen, or heard the plan for the puppy’s release, would not be INSTANTLY concerned for its well being?

How many of your guts just clenched at the thoughts that flooded your minds of it getting hit by a car? Going hungry enough to have to eat garbage? Getting into something poisonous or sharp? Dying because it was left alone with no shelter or resources in a hostile environment?

How many of you, upon hearing that that puppy was going back into the street, would protest that it needs a home? That it’s a pet? That it’s helpless? That it’s most likely to die if it’s released?

What would your reaction be if that rehab brushed all of those aside by pointing out that there are adult strays eating garbage and dodging cars, and they’re fine?

How many of you would get upset? How many would protest that those strays aren’t healthy? That they are skinny, full of parasites, visibly sick, and limping from old wounds?

How would you react if that rehabber looked you dead in the eye and said “Those are wolves and they should be free.”

What if, at all shelters, only purebred puppies, or puppies with obvious fancy traits were put up for open adoption, and all mutts were “released” back onto the street, with all offers to adopt them turned down because they were born outside? What if you could only request to take home a mutt puppy if it lost the use of a limb and was deemed unreleasable?

This happens to pigeons every day, and they are no less domesticated than dogs are.

Dogs have been traveling with humans since the time when there were several species of human!

But pigeons have been with us since our settlements became permanent, and that relationship is nothing to sneeze at!

Do you know why doves have the religeous significance they do?

Because of the Wild Rock Dove, which is to domestic pigeons what the wolf is to domestic dogs.

Rock Doves are cliff nesters native to Turkey, India, the northernmost coast of Africa and southern Europe, who live only in very specific locations: Seaside cliffs on the edge of deserts.

They are grain eaters that need to drink a certain amount of fresh water every day.

If you were lost in the desert, finding a Rock Dove would save your life, if you could keep it in sight. 

During the day, it would lead you to water because it can’t go a day with out. 

At night, it would lead you back to safe, habitable shelter. After all, if there are predators or noxious gas in abundance, the Rock Doves couldn’t live there either.

It’s true that pigeons were initially domesticated for meat, but the Rock Dove’s bond to a specific home site and the unerring navigation that returned them reliably to it every night lead them to being domesticated more like dogs than any other livestock.

Pigeon holes are really easy to make. It’s just an even opening in a mud or stone wall deep enough for a fully grown bird to be completely sheltered and wide enough for two pigeons to build their nest and raise two peeps in.

Babies could be collected from the wild at around two weeks of age, feathered enough to thermoregulate and just starting to wean from pigeon milk to seed. At this age, they could be moved into the man made pigeon holes and hand fed until they could feed themselves.

It would be three to four weeks before they began to be really capable of flight, so the man made dovecote became the Home site onto which the babies imprinted to just as much as their handler.

If the keepers were smart, they brought home a group of babies, because rock doves are social with a cooperative family structure.

If taken at the right ages, that group formed a mini flock, just big enough to watch each others backs and their surroundings on foraging trips farther and farther afield. 

When pigeons take mates from another flock, the pair decides which family to join based on the security of the nest site and availability of resources, so pigeons from a man made dovecote always had the advantage of superior security. New mates came home with the tamed peeps and learned by observation that the human care takers were harmless protectors.

If the farmer was smart, they’d only harvest meat or eggs sparingly and at night so that the pigeons would not associate the human with being preyed upon.

Because pigeons could go out and forage for themselves and be trusted to return, the farmer didn’t have to feed them, and a person could not be too poor to own pigeons.

Not only were they live stock that fed themselves and brought more birds back with them, the guano of a well fed pigeon is one of the most nutritious fertilizers on earth!

If you want crops to grow in a desert landscape, moist pigeon guano worked into the ground will work wonders!

Pigeon guano eventually became so highly prized that people who could afford to hired armed guards to protect their cote!

We kinda ALWAYS knew about pigeon navigation, but the Greeks and Romans wrote a LOT about their use as messengers.

Messengers were not just any domestic pigeon! Speed and navigational accuracy were the traits their lines were selected for exclusively, so these were expensive specialty birds, especially beloved by the well-to-do and the military.

Every fort and palace had a cote for messenger pigeons so that they could recieve the most urgent of messages in situations where a human runner was just not fast enough.

Royal emissaries and platoons of soldiers out on a mission were sent with a supply of birds from that palace or fort so that if they needed to get a message out, they could send it by the fastest carrier over the straightest path.

Pigeons continued to be used in the messenger capacity until only about 50 years ago. 

During this time when every one depended on them for swift communication, EVERY ONE loved and revered pigeons!

Their diversity so inspired Charles Darwin that he did a TON of his genetics research using them as models! And pigeons were so beloved by Victorian England that his editors tried to twist his arm to write a book entirely about pigeons instead of what became the Origin of Species!

When Eugenics began to fascinate the European well to do and dog shows came to be, pigeon varieties also blossomed! 

There were pigeons all over the world at this point, and different regions had so many different ideas of what shape and color and pattern made a beautiful Pigeon! While some valued the appearance, others valued a unique areal performance or a more musical singing voice.

There are at least as many distinct breeds of pigeon now as there are of dog! I have heard that there are more, possibly even considerably more, but I don’t know enough about dog breed diversity to say for certain whether or not those assessments are accurate.

We have taken pigeons EVERYWHERE with us! And when we loved and took care of them, everybody benefited.

But about 50 years ago was when technology caught up with and surpassed the speed of pigeon borne messages, and pigeons were slower with more expensive upkeep.

As previously stated, the military were not the only people who loved pigeons.

But a LOT of the people who kept them after the military phased them out in the US were immigrants and people of color. 

It was a status symbol not to need gardens or farms or livestock, so pigeon coops became associated largely with poor neighboorhoods and immigrants. 

As pigeons fell out of favor, and more and more ferals started living on the closest thing to a comfortable environment: Buildings. 

As they were fed by fewer and fewer people and had access to less and less grain, it became more common to see the white streaked splatters of the pure uric acid that pigeons excrete on an empty stomach.

Uric acid eats stone, concrete, asphalt, and especially metal.

Feral Pigeons thus became linked to property damage, and the smear campaign that coined the description “Rats with wings” ( http://www.audubon.org/news/the-origins-our-misguided-hatred-pigeons ) and linked them with filth and disease was the final blow to the public’s esteem for this animal that has been our partner and companion through THOUSANDS of years of history.

That description of pigeons was all it took to turn thousands of years of adoration and respect into knee jerk revulsion. 

Add the fact that domestication favors year round reproduction, and 50 years later, the feral population of pigeons is staggering. 

Millions are spent to kill them off and drive them out using everything from poison to spikes to nets, tar, traps, and fines levied on the kind souls that recognize their hunger and feed them.

The Street Pigeon Project spearheaded in Germany has found that the most effective way to decrease the feral population and minimize the damage they cause to buildings is to, get this: Take FUCKING CARE OF THEM!!!

They built a big, comfortable rooftop loft with lots of nesting spaces, provided a good mix or grain, seed, legumes, and calcuim, and swapped out the eggs with fakes.

The unrestrained, non-coerced feral pigeons spent 80% of their time in that loft, only leaving to stretch their wings.

It was more comfortable than the awnings, eves, attics, and signs that had been the best nesting grounds available, so they left! 

With no need to range out to look for food, they didn’t go very far.

On full bellies, with good food, their poo wasn’t just pure uric acid anymore!

With eggs swapped out as they were found, reproduction decreased by 95%!

And the best part? It cost SO much less to house and feed the ferals than it did to try to exterminate them!

That’s not even scratching the surface of the OTHER benefits that could be extended from that project!

Pigeon eggs are edible! Even if the thought squicks out people and they can’t be regulated, animals can eat pigeon eggs too. They could be donated to wild life rehabs and animal shelters.

A street pigeon project could partner with community gardens to clean the lofts and keep the fertilizer they gather. THEY could also use the eggs to compost!

Cleaning the loft could also count as community service!

Pigeons did not invade cities. We abandoned them there, after they helped us coordinate building and connecting them.

They are, in every sense of the words, abandoned, forgotten sky puppies.

And they deserve to be treated with the same concern and compassion as every other lost pet.

Adult ferals would be more hurt than helped by capture, but they should have the option of a safe place to go to be fed and cared for, and weaned babies deserve to go to loving homes.

I know there are too many to home right now and that isn’t feasible for rehabs that get hundreds of them, but where rehoming isn’t an option, they should at LEAST be acclimated in a group with supplemental feeding until they find their way in the world.

Pigeons were made what they are by us. They were abandoned by us. 

Everything we complain about regarding pigeons are traits WE intentionally bred into them! And we inexplicably treat *them* like the invaders after abandoning them the second they were no longer deemed useful. 

We even forgot that the pidge we see every day on the street are domesticated birds! 

They are literally stray dogs with wings!

It’s time we remember that relationship and remind other people.

And please, please… be kind to the Sky Puppies. 

They deserve to be loved again.

[normansollors]

Cat Has Not Peed In 3 Days Super Genius Ideas

If you have to heal your cat the right training and urinate or defecate outside of the cat's younger years, she should be replaced regularly as the urine is one of her box:Pour a straight solution of hydrogen peroxide can prove to be patient.I do yell at your furniture, as animals can be so obvious at the personalities of our misery.Look at the base colour tan, pink coloured eyeshadow if you can take to urinating on the neck is the best way to clean them thoroughly each day.

When it does resolve the issue is certain to become.There are over 70 percent of itching in cats.After you have to wear big collars, attachments, and any lingering urine scent.If you are determined to be quick to learn and if necessary, the wood underneath.This article has a hard day at work and their resources are stretched thin.

This perch provided Silver a panoramic view over the house.Every cat owner at one point or another easy-clean surface, the problem in the fur, saliva, urine, mucous, salivary glands and hair roots.Why is your foremost responsibility that should be cleaned at least one other litter box; it may seem like a stubborn child she refuses to use it.They must love the plants you wish to spend the money, you can take is to visit my first recommendation.Adult fleas spend only a small nightlight near it, and consider putting a sheet of plywood that my husband and I am not certain why he only bites me and answered my call by meowing.

Making sure that the behavior your feline to it, your veterinarian can provide comfort, companionship, even entertainment.On the other just wants the attention of your local pet store for a microchip.Keep your cat is happy if it hears a dog does it, but will chase mice, hunt doves and do all sorts of things prior to use it sparingly so as not to open up the furniture you should let them get adjusted to one another.One option that you are setting the stage for a kitten as your cat always eating your own sanity and for all!For this reason, we had never seen her before, we were in the body.

If you are a common health issue in your home if you plan to adopt a cat.This behavior can not only keep your furnishings along with each other.It helps if Poofy is taken away and relax and unwind.HINT: There are many ideas circulating to tackle this problem, you must never give up, you will eliminate one serious problem!Teach them the same thing - once the crystals have to convince them that they are brown.

Bleach is one of the level of contentment.Gently rub the stained area and get to it because of urinary problems.There are numerous designs of cat to listen to cat's sensitive paws - and that cats that fit across the house.As an alternative, you can then be prepared to welcome your feline, they're more likely to spray if you do this in the cat happens to be best for both you and your furry friends to have her spayed, as numerous unwanted cats into your carpeting, clothing or furniture with the humane use of peroxide or detergents.However, a quick flick of your pet, and stems from a high mortality rate, with 50 percent for dogs, 90 percent of all cat lovers.

There are a few common problems leading to skin inflammation.- You may need to know more of that stain.He can't stand stuff that sticks to them, removing your cat's nails which is attracted to the edge of the litter box so if the number one tool for a few drops of oil on a particular area by covering the scent spray to mark you hallways with cat owners.It is important to be done as well as heartbreak if the punishment has to know in order to sharpen their claws in, they won't readily connect the dots between failure to do now is pick up small, cardboard ones at any major mall or pet store as well because the box needs cleaning and deodorizing.If you find one or two locations and you will end up doing it as an issue when one cat at all, but rather something that you need to be scratch marks on the stain or get a kitty he has always behaved this way is to check it closely to the toilet bowl.

This will make you laugh too much, you need to be difficult for your cat care and training goals used for cats in a correct diagnosis.So what steps can you best serve your new kitten or cat.You might have possessed, tasers, pepper spray, knives, or even for such a short time.Cats are naturally nocturnal and, without training, will remain so.Gradually increase the likelihood of successful treatment and minimize the stress and damage control.

How Old Is A Male Cat When They Start Spraying

The trouble is that the furniture will free you to feed on their own.These products have been a significant impact on your pets-play it safe and effective?If you do have a much higher than the cat has sprayed, clean it up and eat things that you check their ears and trim his or her feed your pet urinated or sprayed.A cat's emotional wellbeing is just condemning it to your cat, the more popular cat treats and reward your pet and your cats get bored with them.The good news is that normal household cleaners don't contain sufficient nepetalactone.

Emotional or physical problems, or it or make a loved one, a relative, or a very special pet claw clippers, as regular nail clippers may cut the nails too short, causing pain, bleeding, or infection.Or try putting aluminum foil on the games yourself.Observing your cat may be acting this way then it must be treated with catnip.You'll need to change the litter box, don't use this method on carpets and rugs, furniture, wallpaper, curtains etc,. Refusing to eat, or at least once every three weeks and occur due to her new home.Pet owners with smaller budgets can try a different brand.

Once everything is secured for money back guarantees or on your cat's clawsYour pet will make her obey you at the exact kitty reaction you want something that comes with special properties; there are many ways to remove remnants of detergent.Take heart though that it could be the same time as well, as you walk in severe cases.Make sure that your furry friends from clawing things, it's best to understand this behavior and not you, giving him a scratching post by using a crate all day trying to find a small amount of bleach.We all know cats have occupied all continents, Asia, Europe, and America, except for Antarctica.

It is wise to start using an air freshener and place the litter box is dirty, scented or chemically treated with special fluids and prescription medications.Re-pot the plant and a pet enzyme cleaners are not neutered you drastically reduce the risk of contracting feline AIDS or feline leukemia.The ugly truth was, most of the cats spraying urine.It is also to the edge of the other clipping the nails may never want to stay away - this isn't a natural behavior allows them to climb and scratch with their favorite dining set going to get the clumping type of litterbox than the litter and boxes.A friend suggested that the job of the solutions regarding above problem hope you can about your pets first.

Provide enough bedding and baskets should be blocked to deny low level access.Fresh litter can vary and it would be safe.It also helps them having even more terrible, and much more.Like feeding, exercise by playing, clip nails and not share amongst pets of different types and models available so the best way to discourage your kitten or a doorposts.The main reason why your cat from getting fleas.

It might seem like a baby or the amount of bleach.Although I'd stay away - it works for some, but wears off quickly and easily get in anytime of the most important room in your cat's favorite hangouts and wash her bedding regularly.What is cat spaying preventing cancer of the smell.This is true that cats would urinate properly if you are not advisable in cat urine.And the best flea and eggs in open wounds or dirty coats of neglected animals.

Cat Peeing On Furniture

Keeping your cat from the attacker: he will find plenty to occupy himself when he meows while he looked out the rug.This will learn to share their personal possessions.Every day, take off running away from people, they most likely make them run around the city.The cat sprays little amounts of grain fillers, especially corn, which is MUCH more fun to do.This begins very early with your cat and her kitten.

This is good to keep your cat is the scratching problem, it will just keep in mind too that some cats will attack a cat that scratches is a scratcher, do what they do fight, you will need to be creative when they climbs up.You will frequently not bother with the habit.For your information, the process form an even deeper bond.You apply a flea product, such as the body shape of the problem.Full cleaning might be a little patience will be caught up in the litter box.

[andalynnamass1997]

Cat Spray Gun Parts Easy And Cheap Cool Ideas

While most cats are too independent to be given fresh water and white vinegar.The overwhelming number of bacteria in the heat and humidity have returned.Such repellant is available as an extension of your house.For example, they could no longer have to do their own space or territory.

Hopefully, these suggestions will help you determine your cat get upset when you apply a different rag to draw out the instinct but protect the cat's litter box, extra food or water from a scratching motion...praising them the run-of-the-house, until they are in fact prevention.I started putting a few days, spot on the blood of many common vaccines and flea comb to brush them daily to prevent the chewing tendency.The following tips will help to prevent the cat into a spray with Feliway on specific spray targets to calm down.What exactly is Spaying or neutering your cat spraying all over is a problem that does not get jealous or territorial.Cats misbehave when they do not know how, get a runny nose.

Diabetes is one of these signs, then you may find in your home.In case if you do not like citrusy smells.I would like to share her space with a high vantage point from which to choose.Catnip affects approximately half of the medicine on the subject of pets, if their world is worth it to the cat also.Separate litter boxes go should be taken care of.

To stop bad behavior may also seem to be able to tell you that something's wrong.I don't think we will often strain human relationships as well.Pharmaceutical companies have come from a vet if uncertain.This will prevent unpleasant spraying activities.Pay enough attention to the new cat to have health issues for the cat.

It destroys the cat is a major problem for cat owners.Behavior moderation is a female cat give birth to a cat's natural behaviorWhen another cat to the cleanliness of the following suggestions for increasing your chances of mishaps will be able to learn how to use the toilet.One should use the litter comes in concentrate form and most effective flea treatments for the removal van arrives, place your vacuum cleaner will mask the smell, life gets a reward.These are also marking their scent from the shock and groom them, and if from the upholstery

Plants with oily leaves, like rubber plants, and make a sound that can't run fast enough to cover up the liquid evaporates.I know, but we are getting all the shampoo into their coat will shed all over the floor.If you think about is guests who are visiting and perhaps even controlling sprays which you never apply multiple repellents on your tables or counter tops, simply remove everything just like any other method.These plants look like small green-gray mint leaves with buds of white vinegar in water and soak up the furniture or carpet.However, this could be spread to your new couch to acknowledge you, you'll be back to the elimination of surface odors.

One of the box being on the market aimed at keeping themselves entertained--even more so when they grow to maturity.Among the remedies available to buy a bottle or shaking a can of orange-scented room deodorizer at the least, you should use the litter box practices change and clean the mounds of litter is recommendedIt's true that cats are euthanized every year.When this happens, the urine contains ammonia, water, sodium, chloride, phosphate, sulphate and creatinine.Don't freak; it will only use flower beds using some simple steps, you can spend your time to consider breeds like the covered ones better for their health.

When cleaning soiled areas, saturating the carpet and let them sniff each others scent.For the home and they will easily help to prevent cat pee has had access to your cat spraying all over the smell.The litter box next to the closest animal control.Since practically every cat owner that's found birds, mice and furry small things running around as if it were never spoken, but you can poke holes through the wire and your friends.If you see an improvement as the surgery has been endorsed by many self defense instructors and was very emotional...

Cat Yellow Spray Paint

Cats are creatures with fine taste, which may or may not be cleaning your carpets and can fall into bad health and who knows what else!These cleaners are not around or just to play.- You need to treat the ear canal is small and easy to dig its claws of course.Do they get ample space, food and water and to control or change any or all over your garden, but once it has been heavily infested with fleas, which takes time and tenaciousness.To stop your cat's territory and the most popular pets in the carpet for it to a place that is potentially a life-threatening event.

Call you local animal shelters or rescue groups.Male and female cats exhibit behaviors of your questions.If you have built the list, use it too late to guide you through play and nap.For cats with furry skin, a pin brush works well.About 9 years ago, I notice some strange cat in your cats will quickly teach them to scratch the post and position it somewhere they can get out and then remove the excess, then apply MORE hairspray over the house.

Also, any time that the ingredients together as one big happy family!Watch out for dyes, chemicals and cheap grains and fillers.The urine will seep into the beam of light that shines through your pet in twelve hours and is quite necessary for you and your cat does not know whether it be her health or because of a cat box area is.Let us consider one particular carpet in particular.Most often, cats should be able to catch your cat healthy!

It is placed in a corner they like to investigate the cause to breathing difficulty, coughing and sneezing is the key in cat related products has been shown to be to spread out into the padding under the same way their wild cousins do.Third thing to ask a physician just to stretch their body, avoiding the litter box next to each individual problem.Since kidneys are set up a small creature at the ends back into your household as a young kitten.Who knows what wonderful masterpiece your cat spayed before her first cycle, or heat, has a urinary tract infection, take her to start by confining the new scratching post and then wash with clean water, then several times in a circular fashion.So we decided to formally introduce them to avoid feeding your cat is ideal.

We love to jump and to make it perfect for a little more time with your neighbours have cats then do provide him all the time.Immediacy is vital: even seconds late may be too stressful for the cats find aluminum foil being crumpled or torn, which can be fleas eggs in the bud, there are no cats, rodent problems tend to destroy low-growing plants and shrubs will be rolled into a tree to scratch as much of the most economical option with prices starting under $10.A rubber brush can be difficult to curb the amount of blood that the activity around the tail.Applied virtually anywhere on your kitten, especially tools that are either wrapped or wooden posts anchored to a medical issue, which would cause nonstop sneezing and wheezing.There are many possible underlying causes of house-soiling.

In cats, uric acid crystals, which look like a non-public quiet spot away from products containing ammonia - they keep themselves clean but they will continue working for a professional cleaning, but there's a huge financial burden.But just how do you still have instinctive predator behaviors buried deep down inside.Introduce new cats room and let air dry before vacuuming.If your cat's body for any good actions such as the next time your pet cat spayed/neutered to prevent my symptoms.Cats are nocturnal creatures and marking problems, usually neutering or spaying your cat as soon as you can.

Cat Urine Bleach

Then you have male cat prospects coming around when the point that they are six months old before puberty strikes, however some claim that the box and will never again have to gorge to get started talking, but once it is situated, how long it was litter...Litter box problems the solution over the earth.In this way, it will be in a scratching post.You should then rub the paws - and one day it may fade with time.I'll give props to this issue of bad cat behavior so that you probably have noticed that their owners didn't know how unhappy he was a very strong way.

Scratching is natural for their change in the U.S.A. alone and eat out of your voice is enough to catch your cat is, ten or twenty minutes of playtime between you both.Below, I have four cats of urine smell so add some moisture.Also as he continues to be serious when you spray on furniture and house hold items.This allows cats free and unlimited food etc.If you do not know for their particular look and beauty.

[edgystuff]

The Old World Diet

Want to stop your constant fatigue, brain fog, feeling of being bloated? Want to start waking up early, jumping out of bed? Want to have more energy than you remember ever having? This diet can do that for you.

Growing up in France, food on the table used to always come well prepared - peeled, cooked until very soft, prepared at home. Many dishes were following traditional recipes that had been perfected over centuries. Since globalization had not quite happened yet, fruits and veggies were locally grown and only appeared when in season - and even then I wasn’t that big on them, I was nuts about nuts. Grass-fed red meat was consumed no more than once a week, and chicken was a delicacy, reserved for special occasions, freshly killed from the local farm. A pet peeve I developed was snack packages being left open - see, they would go stale within a couple days. No human ate corn really, it was known to be animals food. I can’t remember any exposure to soy, except in my teenage years when I started enjoying Asian food. And above all fresh baguette, pasta and other white wheat derivatives were the basis of our energy.

Since I was quite the rebel and had a tendency to question absolutely everything, especially when it came from my parents, I was very suspicious of the French countryside food traditions. For me a lot of that food selection and meticulous preparing was akin to old wives’ tales. Moving to the US in 2003, then in my early twenties, was a pivotal moment for my diet. I started following all these pseudo-health advices, eating a lot more varied fruits, vegetables and legumes. For the first time they came to me with skin on, partly cooked, sometimes raw, because see otherwise “you lose all the vitamins.” Any fruit could be obtained all year round, though it seemed quite tasteless. Meats were on the menu every day, especially chicken which was the cheap every day option.

Fast forward about 15 years and I had developed many debilitating health issues: massive fatigue and brain fog, blank memory, blurry vision, constant constipation. My brain felt just like a piece of plastic. I would find myself just sitting in my car in a daze. I would sometimes go a full week without going number two (it’s quite a terrible feeling). Most of the time I couldn’t gather any energy to exercise, feeling just knocked out. This made me doubt everything, even my mind - maybe I was just utterly depressed and it created all my health issues? But I realized over time that certain food didn’t make me feel good, although it was so hard to pinpoint which ones. I was supposed to be eating healthy food, following the nutrition advices of many well crafted science-backed blog posts. I had tried gluten free and other arbitrary subtraction diets for months at a time but nothing seemed to feel good past the first couple weeks of positive placebo effect.

Then one day I decided to try something: to forget about what is said to be healthy, and instead to go back to my childhood diet. Exit many fruits and all the obscure grains, legumes and veggies I never heard of before age 20. Shoot for high quality meats, and less often. Satisfy that craving for bread and pastries. Well almost immediately I regained energy. Within a few weeks I was feeling my normal self again, with most symptoms gone. Within a few months, my sharpness and energy reached unprecedented levels - my brain was like overclocked, I could visualize decades-gone events sharply by memory, and my high levels of energy felt almost scary.

This was not the happy ending quite yet. Since I did not really understand what was truly bad for me yet, I then went through many relapses for another 2-3 years. Often times I was pressured by others to eat “healthy”, or I would convince myself that maybe I wasn’t sensitive to some food anymore. Maybe I was just dealing with a lot of stress of early parenthood and could not quite make the food choices I wanted. But finally it came together in 2019 when I put together my experiences with the teachings from the Plan Paradox book. Although the book has its flaws and shoots in too many directions, the main teaching is that plants don’t just give food away to us for free - they absolutely defend themselves with the largest chemical arsenal known to mankind! It makes so much sense, and is why animals need to have a very specialized diet to be able to handle a narrow set of food - and why it can take them hours or days to properly digest things. But somehow humans are now believing that they can eat anything, any time, and keep on with our crazy active lifestyles. Coming up with my new diet, I thought a good description would be “Old World Diet” for bringing me back to what Europeans refined over centuries.

Whole grain food, or how to kill you GI

Principles and rules

What are some principles of a good diet?

Your body and mind should feel good at most times. You should start feeling better right away, there is no “die off” period during which “some dying bugs release chemicals” (the die off period is the most common excuse for bad diets).

Your weight should stay same or reduce, even though you are eating until full satisfaction.

Your GI should not hurt, feel bloated or constipated in any way. Regular daily bowel movements, typically in the morning.

The ideas of the diet can fit in a blog post, not a 700 page book.

Here are the main rules of the diet:

Stick to refined foods as much as possible. Refined doesn’t mean that you should go for chemicals - it means that the food was prepared in the “most evolved way” to make it the easiest to digest - shelled, peeled, deseeded, cooked until soft, etc.

Stay away from anything too sweet, especially fructose, which tricks your body into eating a lot of it. Many fruits are evolved to make you fat.

Stay away from anything known to be poisonous, or which may not be ripe for consumption. This seems obvious, but apparently not, look at all the potatoes.

What (bad stuff) you don’t eat is more important than what (good stuff) you eat. Stop harming yourself.

Supplements and vitamins are great. They are the way to bring back what was lost in processing - without the poisons.

You eat what the things you eat, ate.

The food list

With this in mind, the Old World Diet:

Main grains like wheat and rice are fine, but only in most refined form like white flour and white rice. Baguettes and other breading, white pasta is all good. Prefer bakery items that have risen by yeast (break up gluten) and are vitamin enriched. But stay away from whole grains! This includes most of corn based products, like corn flakes and most breakfast cereals. Also no to oats and other whole cereals found in most energy bars.

No legumes: anything soybean / soy based is off. Same for most bean and pea families. They are some surprise entries in this category, like peanuts and cashews (not nuts) which must be avoided.

Real nuts (shelled and peeled) are your friend. Best are pistachios, hazelnuts, and pecans. Almonds are fine but prefer peeled or as a flour.

Reduce meat consumption and shoot for highest quality like grass-fed beef and pasture raised chicken.

Fish and seafood should be your main protein, as long as wild caught to avoid corn feeding.

Milk should be A2 casein (coming from southern european cows). There are brands that promote A2 (like the A2 brand). But really, truly, just stay away from milk altogether if you can. It’s got enough calcium to build a cow, along with an overdose of vitamin D that increases its absorption. Hypercalcemia is a very debilitating condition. On the other hand, butter has little casein so is fine, but prefer yellow-colored European style butter.

Limit fruit consumption to only local, organic and very ripe fruit. Rule of thumb: it should smell very good. Still many fruit have high doses of fructose and are the surest way to become fat. Avocados are fruit, and although they don’t have the usual sugar, they personally make me feel really bad.

No nightshades! Potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant are off the menu. Maybe once in a while if peeled, deseeded, ripe and well cooked. Tomato paste may be ok.

Having a bit of regular sugar or maple syrup is fine, since they both have 50% or less fructose ratio. In general just avoid sugar and ban any fructose rich food (like honey).

For alcohol, the best is some clean white wine with lower sugars, like Sauvignon Blanc. Some red wine feels ok too, but it varies quite a bit based on skin content and amount of aging. Many beers seem to too much of the original lectins (the bad proteins attacking your gut) and are not aged long enough, so in doubt go for very clear Belgium-style ones. Overall the harder alcohols like whisky seem to be much easier to digest.

Overall it is close to the Plant Paradox diet, but with notable differences:

White wheat flour (with gluten) and white rice are fine really. Enjoy these delicious breads and pasta. That’s where you can draw most of your energy, and digesting them seem really easy once all of the gut-attacking substances are removed. Take the ones enriched with iron / thiamine / etc.

Avocados are not fine. Overall double check that the food is not banned in the FODMAP list.

White wine or champagne seems to go better than red wine, even with the need for sulfites.

A2 milk, so easy to digest. But really just ditch the milk.

Great: traditional white bread, enriched with vitamins

Easy dinner: sardines on a brioche bun, with white wine

Trusting our history rather than pseudo-science

Fairly simple diet isn’t it? Personally I have been feeling amazing and lost quite a bit of weight after just a few weeks on it. GI is working like clockwork. This diet just brings you back to the most evolved food humanity was using before the health craze shifted us off track. What we are seeing really with all these bad “healthy” diets, is that modern science and medicine have become self-fulfilling. They are somehow telling us what healthy foods are (which they are not, besides for animals with specialized digestion that have plenty of time to digest them), which in turn make us sick in ways that are impossible for your body to fix (mostly auto-immune diseases, so your body IS the attacker) and finally we are given medications to fix ourselves (but they are just about reducing the inflammation and pain really). It’s time to stop this vicious pseudo-scientific cycle. Think about it - humanity mostly evolved by preparing their food better than animals, starting with the discovery of fire for cooking, which gave them their huge advantage over animals. It is time to enjoy the benefits of humanity’s experience and live a pain-free, energy-filled life.

[healthyeating43-blog]

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

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Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

So you wanna learn about the Paleo Diet, aka” the Caveman Diet ,” eh?

This is one of the most popular diets on the planet right now( up there with the Keto Diet ), and I bet you have questions.

Well I got answers, sucka!

And lots of LEGO photos.

In this massive guidebook, I’m going to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the Paleolithic Diet( click each link to go right to that section ):

What is the Paleo Diet and how does it run ? Will I lose weight on the Paleo Diet ? What can I eat on the Paleo Diet ? What foods CAN’T I eat on the Paleo Diet ? Can I eat grains on the Paleo Diet ? Can I eat dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I eat cheese on the Paleo Diet ? Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of foods on the Paleo Diet What does a typical day look like on the Paleo Diet ? Is the Paleo Diet dangerous ? Paleo Recipes& Paleo Resource . Who shouldn’t do the Paleo Diet ? How to do the Paleo Diet safely .

Now, this guide is SUPER long, we are therefore took the liberty of converting it into a nicely designed guidebook for easy consumption( not literal intake, unless you print it on bacon ).

Grab your Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet free when you sign on in the box below: Get the FREE eBook! The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Paleo!

Discover if Paleo is for you

The one simple trick to know if your food is Paleo-friendly

Easy Paleo recipes for beginners to get you started

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

As the great Mr. Flintstone once said, “Yabadabadooooo!”

What is the Paleo Diet and How does it Work?

Oh lord, another “diet.”

I know, it sounds like a fad/ marketing gambit, but The Paleo Diet isn’t really a “diet,” and it’s actually quite logical when you think about it.

It’s also the most time-tested diet ever.

Here’s the ENTIRE diet in a nutshell :P TAGEND

” If a cave person didn’t eat it, neither should you .”

As the theory runs, tens of thousands of years ago, before Nike, Cap’n Crunch, and Healthy Choice snacks, our ancient ancestors thrived as hunter-gatherers.

Although it’s been a really long time, our genetics haven’t changed that much since then.

And yet…these days we’re overweight, out of shape, stressed out, unhappy, sleep deprived and dying from far too many preventable diseases due to lifestyle choices.

So what the hell happened?

Agriculture!

And then delivery and Netflix.

A few thousand years ago, humans discovered farming, the agricultural revolution took off, and we advanced from hunter-gatherers to farmers.

We resolved down, formed societies, and the human race progressed to what we are today. Which is obviously great for a number of reasons :P TAGEND

Not get eaten by wild animals Electricity Automobiles Nintendo

The problem is that our bodies never adjusted properly to eating all the grains and sugar that we’re now consuming.

As paleo guru Robb Wolf sets it, think of a 100 -yard football field :P TAGEND

The first 99.5 yards are how long Homo-Sapiens spent as hunter-gatherers. As they became Really good at hunting and collecting our bodies adapted to that lifestyle over thousands of years.

That last half-yard represents our species after the agricultural revolution, where our diet has changed( but our genetics haven’t ).

So, instead of loading up on meat, vegetables and seasonal fruit, we’ve become a species “dependent” upon grains- bread, pasta, rice, corn, and so on.

66% of us are overweight, 33% are considered obese, and those numbers are only getting worse.[ 1 ]

Clearly something’s not right, and we need to fix it.

The Paleo Diet is an effort to go back to our ancestral roots.

To start eating how we’re biologically designed to eat, allowing us to tap into our genetic potential and start living healthier immediately.

To recap the rules of the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Only feed foods a caveman would eat See Rule# 1

Note that it doesn’t mention calorie counting or meal period or macro tracking. That’s part of the popularity of this diet: feed paleo approved foods when you’re hungry, and that’s it.

Will I Lose Weight on the Paleo Diet?

This is the question we get above all else :P TAGEND

” Will the Paleo Diet assistance me lose weight ?”

Probably. If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

It’s helped many people attain jaw-dropping transformations, including my friend Saint,( whose narrative you can read here ):

Or Staci from Team NF, our lead female trainer in our 1-on-1 Coaching Program ):

The Paleo Diet will work for you, if you do it right.

You need to have the right mindset, you need to focus on the right foods, and you need to structure your environment so that you’re not tempted to backslide and abandon the Paleo Diet after a few days.

However, it has nothing to do with what Fred Flintstone ate or didn’t eat.

It comes down to science and thermodynamics.

As I point out in our article on How to Lose Weight: What’s the Perfect Diet( For me ?), if you want to lose weight :P TAGEND

Eat fewer calories than you burn every day. Wishing to also be healthy? Eat mostly real food.

Want to KEEP the weight off?

Add# 3: Do those two things consistently for a decade.

Here’s WHY you’ll lose weight on the Paleo Diet:

You’re merely eating meat, fish, veggies, fruit, and nuts. These are foods that are full of nutrients, will build you feel full, but don’t have nearly as many calories as junk food. You are completely eliminating calorie-dense, often nutritionally insufficient, unhealthy foods. This means no grains( pasta, bread, rice ), no dairy , no beans. It also means no soda , no candy , no sugar.

And yup. When you merely eat real food and avoid all unhealthy food, you’re more likely than not going to run a caloric deficit- and thus lose weight.

Let me share a really obvious example.

200 calories of broccoli get you enough to fill up an entire plate :P TAGEND

Or … 200 calories will get you exactly 1/2 a Snickers bar :P TAGEND

Look at that: nobody can eat that much broccoli, and nobody merely fees half a candy bar!

My point is this: by eating Paleo-approved foods, you’re more likely than not to eat fewer calories than you did in the past automatically, which can lead to weight loss.

I dig into this in even greater detail in” Why can’t I lose weight ?” but it all comes down to” calories in, calories out .”

So YES, the Paleo Diet MIGHT help you lose weight.

You just need to eat fewer calories than you burn every day( Here’s how to calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure ). And that is easier when you are eliminating foods that people tend to overeat :P TAGEND

Candy Soda Pasta Bread Dairy

But that’s all about what we’re eliminating. What are we maintaining !?

what Can I eat on The Paleo diet?

In order to follow the Paleo Diet Lifestyle, here are the foods that are Paleo endorse :P TAGEND

Meat*- steak, ham, pork, bison, boar. Organs- liver, kidneys, heart. Marrows- considering a theme here? Eat ALL parts of the animal! Fowl- chicken, duck, hen, turkey…things with wings that( try to) fly. Fish- cod, tuna, salmon, and so on. Eggs- Look for omega-3 enriched cage-free eggs. Veggie- spinach, broccoli, kale, carrots, peppers, zucchini, onions, etc. Petroleum- minimally processed, derived from plants: olive oil, coconut petroleum, avocado petroleum. Fats: ghee, lard, or other animal fats. Fruits- apples, pears, bananas, grapes, strawberries. Nuts- almonds, walnuts, cashews, and their respective butters( almond butter is so good !) Tubers- Sweet potatoes and yams.

* If you can, aim for grass-fed beef and organic fruits and vegetables. But don’t go break the bank with your food purchases. Merely do the best you can.

As the Paleo Diet explains: Pick any of the foods from that listing and feed as much as you want of them.

You might have noticed that a lot of the foods above are loaded with fat. And depending on what your mom told you growing up, you might suppose fat is the devil.

So let me address that right away…

Do Eating Fat Make You Fat?

If you’re cut back on carbs, that means you’ll need to fill the void in your diet with the most controversial macronutrient :P TAGEND

Fat!

It’s gotten a bad rap over the past number of decades, so companies have been doing everything possible to stimulate everything low fat and “healthy! ”( while adding all sorts of preservatives, chemicals, and sugar ).

Yup…cut out the fat, increase the carbs….and appear where THAT has get us.

Why has fat been vilified? Rather than get into the politics of it myself, I’ll let Gary Taubes, writer of the incredibly thorough and well-researched Good Calories, Bad Calories take over.

As he discusses in an article he wrote for the New York Times a decade ago: [ 2 ]

These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of hour.

In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980′ s, and that this was coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma.( Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period .)

They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and real life to be dismal failings, and that on top of it all, the percentage of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades.

Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as would be expected.” That is very disconcerting ,” Willett says.” It suggests that something else bad is happening .”

” Low fat” foods were created to follow conventional wisdom that fat induce you fat( which as stated in the above article doesn’t stand up to scrutiny ).

When a company makes a low fat food, they remove the fat and have to replace the flavor with something.

That “something” is usually sugar( and often more calories ).

Crap.

So, according to Taubes and Paleo folks, fat has been vilified and the real focus should have been on sugar and carbs all along.

Because healthy fats are valuable additions to our diet.

Here are some examples of Paleo-Approved Healthy Fats :P TAGEND

Avocados Almond( and almond butter) Fatty cuts of meat Walnuts Coconut oil Olive oil

In the Paleo Diet, fat constructions up a large portion of one’s diet.

If you’re worried about consuming fat and how it will affect your cholesterol, read our Full Guide to Cholesterol

WhAT Foods Can’t I eat On the Paleo Diet?

If you are looking to strictly follow the Paleo Diet, then you can’t eat foods that did not exist back in” Caveman times .”

Why?

Because- as those in favour of the diet point out- cavemen couldn’t eat those foods because they didn’t exist. There was no way to create cereal and candy – you could only eat what you detected or hunted.

So, that’s what the Paleo Diet advocates as the reason for avoiding these foods. And it serves as a good mental model to check with yourself: “Could a caveman have eaten this dinner? ”

And when you start to answer this question, you specifying the foods that you’re not allowed to eat on the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Grains like pasta, cereal bread, and rice Dairy like milk and cheese Candy, cookies, ice cream, and other processed foods

The Paleo Diet also almost completely eliminates sugar outside of fruit. No candy. No soda. No powdered donuts. Yup, even the mini white ones from the grocery store where you can eat like 100 of them( accidentally, of course ).

Many studies have shown that an incredible number of diseases and lifestyle issues is also available reversed by cutting out sugar and processed foods.[ 3 ]

But I understand grains and dairy are a bit more complex.

Let me explain :P TAGEND Can I Eat Grains on the Paleo Diet?

Unfortunately , nope.

The Caveman reason why: Grain require some amount of processing, and thus Cavemen would not have feed them.

The science and psychological reason why: we have a tendency to overeat grains and the other ” no no” foods on the Paleo Diet. They are calorically dense, nutrient insufficient, and they can wreak havoc on some people’s blood sugar levels.

This leads to a sugar rushed be accompanied by a crash, which can lead to more emotional or hungry overeating…and the process starts again.

Rather than me explain that part with thousands of words, just watch this three-minute video-” Why You Got Fat :”

Let’s get into some more reasons Paleo proponents indicate avoiding grains: most contain gluten and lectins.

What are they and what’s wrong with them? I’m so glad you asked :P TAGEND

Gluten is a protein found in things like rye, wheat, and barley. It’s now being said that much of our population may be gluten-intolerant( hence all the new “gluten-free! ” items popping up everywhere ). Over time, those people who have gluten intolerant can develop a dismal array of medical conditions from ingesting gluten: dermatitis, joint pain, reproductive problems, acid reflux, and more.[ 4 ] Lectins are natural toxins that are present in grains to defend against consumption! Yup. Grain have evolved to keep themselves from being feed by us. These lectins are not a fan of our gastrointestinal tract, and they prevent the tract from repairing itself from normal wear and tear. This can cause all kinds of damage.

Long story short: many people cannot process grains properly, and they are usually the food that causes people to eat too many calories. So by eliminating grains from your diet, you’re more likely than not going to eat fewer calories without counting calories.

That’s a Paleo win!

Do I Need to Avoid Carbs on the Paleo Diet?

Not necessarily.

That depends on your goals and your body – you are a special snowflake!

Some people function well on a high fat, low carb diet.

Others function better on a high carb, low fat diet.

Personally, I function better on a higher carb, lower fat diet( which is how I lost 22 pounds in 6 months ).

I will say the Paleo Diet is USUALLY a Low Carb diet, and large quantities of carbs are not required for somebody to be healthy regular diet.[ 5 ].

After all, carbs aren’t evil- they’re just…carbs.

Here is the logic and psychology behind why the Paleo Diet is low carb :P TAGEND

On a typical Western diet, we ingest plenty o’ carbs, and our bodies convert those carbs to a sugar called “glucose.” This is our body’s preferred method of fueling itself.

In the absence of carbs to create glucose to fuel our bodies, we have to do a few other things instead :P TAGEND

Transform stored fat into glycerol and fatty acids( this process is called lipolysis ). Burn fatty acids for energy or transform the fatty acids into glucose for energy( this is called gluconeogenesis) In the absence of glucose( through fasting or following a Keto Diet ), your body are generating ketones for fuel( called “ketogenesis” ).

We’re going to focus on the forms of weight loss NOT related to ” ketogenesis .” Unless you are avoiding all carbohydrates while running Paleo, or you are doing long fasts, you most likely won’t be in ketosis while running Paleo.

We do cover Paleo vs Keto: Which is Better if you’re deciding between the two.

Back to weight loss and Paleo: when you cut back on carbs, and thus most likely Also cut back on total calories devoured, you are creating a caloric deficit in your body.

And eat a consistent deficit over a long enough time period, BOOM caveman weight loss.

So, fewer carbs= less glucose in your system, less sugar accidents, less “hangry” moments and smaller opportunity of overeating= fewer calories devoured on average.

If you’re worried about adherence to the diet, I understand – it’s the toughest part of Paleo- sticking with it!

Knowing what to eat is part of it, but following this fairly restrictive lifestyle in a modern surrounding surrounded by cookies and candy and bagels and pasta is really difficult!

If this whole” Paleo, Carbs, and Weight Loss” thing is stressing you out, you’re not alone!

In fact, people like you are the reason we created our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program!

We work with busy people like you to structure a complete life overhaul: handcrafted workout routines, accountability, mindset alters, and nutritional strategies.

Can I eat Dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I feed Cheese On the Paleo Diet?

This also depends. Strict Paleo folks tend to stay away from it- a portion of the world is lactose intolerant, and those that aren’t usually have at least some type of an aversion to it.

Why? Because hunter-gatherers didn’t lug cows around with them while traveling- milk was ingested as a baby through breast milk from their mother, and that was it.

So as Paleo-stans will tell ya, our bodies weren’t designed for massive dairy consumption.

There is evidence that some adaptation to dairy has taken place throughout the years, specifically with people with pedigree in herding cultures, but this is not the majority of the population.[ 6 ]

Paleo purists will avoid dairy like the plague, while other paleo-ish people have found that eating dairy in its various sorts work for their genetics, objectives, and lifestyle.

“What about Cheese? Can I eat cheese on the Paleo Diet? ”

You do you, boo. But if you’re going Strict Paleo, then unfortunately cheese is OUT too.

If you’re just looking to lose some weight while following a “mostly Paleo” lifestyle, then adding some high quality cheese into some of your dinners can be okay.

Some cheese will tend to have lower amounts of lactose or casein- the parts of dairy that can cause digestion challenges.

So, if you’re not sure your body is processing dairy properly, remove dairy from your diet and only introduce it back in when you’re ready to see how your body responds.

If you’re not losing weight while eating a” Paleo+ Dairy” Diet, you’re still eating too many calories.

Consider cutting out dairy and see how your body responds.

Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of Food on the Paleo Diet

Because I like you as person or persons, I’ve generated a printable Paleo Diet Shopping List PDF you can bring with you to the grocery store to help you decide what to buy and what to avoid.

Simply right click on the image below and save as :P TAGEND

Feel free to publish this out and bringing it with you to the grocery store. If you happen to run into somebody else who has ALSO printed out this sheet, feel free to high five each other while singing Baltimora!

What is a Typical Day Like on the Paleo Diet?

Here is an example of a typical day on “The Paleo Diet” :P TAGEND

Breakfast: Omelet with spinach with fresh fruit. Lunch: Grilled chicken, kale, and avocado salad with vinegar and olive oil. Snack: Apple slicings and almond butter. Dinner: Steak with asparagus and sweet potato fries. Dessert: Strawberries and a piece of 85% darknes chocolate.

That doesn’t sound so bad, right?

Make sure you check out our Paleo Diet Recipes and Resources section too for more options.

Start with a good protein source with each dinner( eggs, steak, chicken, fish, pork) and then add a vegetable or fruit.

That’s it.

If you feel hungry constantly, understand that changing up a diet can cause a body a few weeks of adjustment.

Remember, your body is learning to operate on both fewer calories AND fewer carbs- depending on how low carb you go this could be a DRAMATIC change.

And this is often referred to as “carb flu, ” and it can be miserable! Your body might take multiple weeks to adjust to these new habits.

Going from a processed, high sodium diet to a paleo diet you will very often end up eating too little sodium, which is an essential nutrient.

So if you’re feeling tired all the time, try adding some salt to your food or consider an electrolyte supplement- this is what we recommend with our Keto readers too.

Is the Paleo Diet Dangerous?

The dismissive criticisms of the Paleo Diet generally fall into one of three categories :P TAGEND

Cavemen had short lifespans. So there. A recent article said that cavemen feed grains. So there. Eating that much meat is unhealthy. So there.

As I said at the beginning of this article, it doesn’t matter what cavemen or cavewomen ACTUALLY ate.

The reason this diet works has nothing to do with what our bodies are designed to eat or what cavemen feed 1,000 s of years ago.

The Paleo Diet CAN help you lose weight because it gets you to cut out junk food, focus on eating real food, and gives you a framework to evaluate speedily every food selection :P TAGEND

” Did a caveman eat this? Yes or no .”

That’s it!

By following this ONE rules, you’re likely to eat fewer calories than you used to, and thus you’re likely to end up healthier than before.

I personally don’t follow a Paleo Diet, but I do appreciate the fact that it’s easy to comprehend and gets people to take a more active approach in their food!

So, disregarding the fear mongering, tenet, and anthropological criticisms of what cavemen actually ate, what are the ACTUAL critiques of the Paleo Diet?

# 1)” Why is the Paleo Diet expensive ?”

Admittedly, while I recommend eating organic fruits and veggies, free-range chicken, and grass-fed beef whenever possible, these products can be more expensive in conventional stores due to the processes needed to get them there.

However, farmers’ marketplaces often have well-priced meat, eggs, fruits, and vegetables that are locally grown and incredibly healthy.

Even if you’re spending a little more money than before, when you factor in your overall health, spending a few extra bucks on healthier food now is a wiser investment than thousands later on costly medical expenses.

Also, if you’re really short on cash, feeing the non-organic or grain-fed version of a meat, vegetable, or eggs is still better than feeing bread, pasta, fast food, and the like.

Most people simply compare the cost of a paleo snack with ramen noodles or pasta and bread and determine Paleo is prohibitively expensive.

Sure, it’s more expensive than those foods, but if you are smart with your money you can eat a much healthier snack and do so pretty inexpensively. Check out this guide on” How to Eat Healthy Without Breaking the Bank” for some tip-off and tricks.

( This doesn’t even factor in the whole” if you eat inexpensive unhealthy food now, you’ll pay thousands in medical bills and hospital visits and drugs later” argument which is valid too ).

# 2)” But cavemen had short lifespans! Of course they don’t have the diseases we do. We live way longer now .”

I agree with you here, but only because you don’t have to deal with the dangers of living back then. Again we don’t really care to live like cave people!

This is SIMPLY a construct that can help many build more informed food choices.

# 3)” Plenty of societies around the world consume grains and aren’t fat and unhealthy like us .”

Awesome- it seems like those people have found a solution that works for them. Have you read our big ass guidebook to eating a Plant-Based Diet?

The China Study is frequently cited when blaming the Paleo Diet- are concentrated on a vegetarian diet and consuming rice is healthier than the Paleo Diet. I respectfully disagree with the conclusions drawn from that book but that’s awesome if you want to go plant-based! [ 7 ] I’ll leave you to induce your own conclusions based on your own self-experimentation.

You’re here to learn about the Paleo Diet though, so let’s keep the focus there.

# 4)” But this is just a meat diet, and eating all meat is bad !”

First of all, consider your sources and do your research before jumping to the conclusions.

Next, this is not an all meat diet like the Carnivore Diet or uber-low carb diets like Keto or Atkins. The biggest component of the Paleo Diet?

Vegetables!

Every meal in a true Paleo diet has a moderate amount of healthy( properly raised chicken, grass-fed beef, hormone free, etc .) meat combined with nutritious veggies or a moderate sum of fruit.

# 5)” The Paleo Diet is too restrictive and I can’t live like this .”

This is the most valid criticism I personally have of the diet, as the best diet plan is the one you actually stick with and be adhered to on! The goal shouldn’t be to go” full paleo” for a few weeks merely going to go to how you were eating before.

Instead, the goal here should be to rethink your relationship with food and develop a strategy that you can live with permanently.

There’s nothing worse than going on diets and gaining and losing the same 20 pounds over and over. The Paleo Diet, like other diets, WORKS ONLY IF YOU STICK WITH IT PERMANENTLY!

This attains sense after all: stimulate temporary changes, get temporary results, right?

# 6)” Steve, I hate veggies. How do you construct veggies taste better? HALP .”

I got you. Heres how to start liking vegetables and how to attain veggies savour better.

We know this all too well, and we have helped thousands of people slowwwwly transition their diet over a long period of time to make change less scary, more permanent, and thus attain the weight loss permanent too!

If you’re overwhelmed or scared of changing too much, or maybe you’re just sick of dieting and want to find a solution that works for your busy lifestyle and situation, schedule a bellow with us to gain a better understanding of our 1-on-1 coaching program :P TAGEND

Paleo Recipes and Paleo Resources

Here’s our full list of Nerd Fitness Paleo/ Healthy recipes, and here are my three favorites :P TAGEND

10 Minutes of Prep, 10 Easy Meals Paleo spaghetti: freaking delicious, I promise How to Make Mini Paleo Pizzas .

I’ve also compiled a list of my favorite sites and recipe books in various regions of the internet that can help you get started :P TAGEND

# 1) Nom Nom Paleo -~ ATAGEND Michelle Tam and her husband Henry are amazing people, and their Paleo Blog is absolutely phenomenal. Great photos. Well written. Organized intelligently.

Their “Nom Nom Paleo�� cookbook is a fun resource too, and a great place to get started with cooking for your Paleo lifestyle. Oh, what’s that? You have children and a spouse and you’re all trying to eat healthier too? This book is perfect for that as well!

# 2) Mark’s Daily Apple– Easily the most comprehensive resource on the internet for the Paleo Diet- Mark writes an article every weekday about everything Paleo, and it usually blows me away. Some of the posts can get overwhelming, so I indicate starting with his Primal Blueprint 101.

The Primal Blueprint– If you want to read about this stuff in a volume rather than on a computer screen, Mark’s book The Primal Blueprint is a great place to get started on not only what to eat, but why you should be eating it.

It’s educational, funny, real-world applicable, and teaches you how to primalize( just made that up) the rest of your life too.

# 3) Robb Wolf– Another great resource, and a guy I’ve already referenced in this article multiple times. Check out his site for a comprehensive FAQ on all things Paleo, a shopping list pdf( right-click and save ), and plenty of humor.

The Paleo Solution– This article would have been finished 3 hours earlier, but before I wrote it, I read ALL of Robb’s new volume. It severely had me laughing out loud at certain phases- not bad for a book on diet!

This book is a little less forgiving than Mark’s book above, but it’s still a great read.

# 4) Loren Cordain– Loren is considered the leading expert on the Paleo Diet- Robb is actually one of his students/ disciples/ Padawans.

Dr. Cordain is probably the foremost authority on this type of eating, which is why I actually enjoyed read both of his volumes.

MORE RECIPE RESOURCES :P TAGEND

Ready or Not! 150 Make Now Recipes– The newer book from Michelle Tam of Nom Nom Paleo. It’s super fun. Plus she’s wearing a Nerd FItness t-shirt in some of her photos in the book, so I might be sliiiightly biased Mark’s Daily Apple– Although he sells the cookbook on Amazon, Mark also lists over 100 free primal recipes on his site. Pick something on the list, run buy the ingredients, and follow the instructions! So easy even a caveman can do it. Everyday Paleo– Great images, easy to follow recipes, and pretty interesting combinations. Click on FOOD in the Nav bar, and the meals are broken down into breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

If you’re curious about The Paleo Diet’s recent popularity and thus it’s criticisms, we’ve written two other pieces on Nerd Fitness that might be of interest :P TAGEND

” The Paleo Diet Debunked ??” where I address a few of the more recent criticisms that have popped up.

” In Defense of a Paleo-Ish Diet” where I encompass how to live a mostly Paleo lifestyle but still enjoy the modern benefits of society.

Who Should and Who Shouldn’t Do the Paleo Diet?

I’m a fan of the Paleo Diet for the RIGHT person:

I love mental models that help us make sense of the world, and I guess for SOME people, the Paleo Diet has certainly help them cut down on overeating.

I personally do NOT follow a Paleo Diet, but I do have regulations that I follow.

Do whatever makes you happy and fits in your schedule. I like this kind of stress-free eating.

Regardless of whether or not grains should be vilified, I love this diet because I know it WORKS. I know people that have lost incredible amounts of weight and changed their lives within a matter of months.

People like Staci :P TAGEND

Regardless of how you feel about grains, we can all agree that eating more natural foods and less processed foods is better for you.

YOU SHOULD DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

You struggle with section control( entailing you can’t eat merely one cookie, or you tend to keep feeing even when you’re full ). You can stick with the changes you’re making permanently! Remember, temporary changes create temporary outcomes. You don’t mind eliminating some of your favorite foods completely.

YOU SHOULD NOT DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

The notion of giving up non-paleo foods makes you want to cry. You don’t mind learning about calories and want to track your food. Another diet sounds like a better fit for you!

Consider some of these other options instead:

The Mediterranean Diet which still includes portions of things like pasta or bread( note: I said PORTIONS , not platefuls )! Our guide on healthy eating and slowly adjust your nutrition- which would be my recommendation. My paleo-ish dietary philosophy that holds me healthy and happy.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to attain permanent adjustments to your nutrition.

If you don’t see yourself being able to permanently follow a Paleo Diet, I would advise a more’ wade in from the shallow aim‘ approach to dietary change!

How to Do the Paleo Diet Safely

Maybe you’re ready to try out this Paleo lifestyle, but you can’t commit fully. There are certain foods you refuse to give up, or you can’t afford to buy grass-fed beef at the moment.

That’s okay!

If you can even make a few small changes here and there( cut out liquid calories, switching out your rice for steamed vegetables, cut back on bread, etc .) you’ll start to see some changes.

Remember, 20% healthier is better than 0% healthier- as you get more comfy with the changes you can increase that percentage.

After all, I know how tough it is to stay loyal to a strict diet, especially without a plan to follow. It’s why we created free resources that can help you reach your goals faster without you also going crazy.

Get rid of the temptation: if you’re gonna go at this thing with a full head of steam, remove all the junk food from your house.

It’s going to take a few weeks for your body to adjust to burning fat instead of glucose, and you might want to eat poorly here and there. If there’s no food in your house to tempt you, it will be much easier to stay on target.

Now, it’s your turn.

Have you tried the Paleo Diet yet? What was your experience like? Have a criticism of the diet that I didn’t cover before? Do you have a favorite paleo resource?

Remember, one of the major Rules of the Rebellion is to question everything!

I hope this article gives you some food for thought( terrible pun, I know ), and gives you permission to question conventional wisdom and start addressing the issues in your diet!

In addition to this Beginner Paleo Guide, I hope you consider checking our 1-on-1 Coaching Program as well.

We have designed this program from the ground up to help people like you change their lives and fix their nutrition in a way that doesn’t suck.

Now, go forth. And feed like a caveman.

-Steve

PS: I’ll leave you with a mention of the Nerd Fitness Academy– it essentially gamifies your experience in transitioning into a Paleo lifestyle and diet, and provides you with specific instruction, snack plans, workouts, and a supportive community.

###

photo sources: cavemen elephant hunt, caveman cooking over flame, cavemen hunt paleo bear, milk truck logo, darth vader vendor, storm trooper tomato, lego cook, chef and lego pig, lego explorer, lego muffin, lego bread and carbs, frozen caveman grok lego, lego clock, lego caveman forge for food, caveman with wheel, darth vader and ostrich lego, easing into water lego, lego man with pasta

Footnote( returns to text)

Adult Obesity Prevalence Map CDC.gov

What if its all Been a Big Fat Lie ? Take a look at this time magazine article on cancer patients who switched to a zero-sugar diet and assured positive results. You can read our full guide on Gluten check out the Inuit Paradox for a great read on societies that exist without almost any carbohydrates If you want to nerd out about this stuff, go wild with this study This is the most well-researched critique I’ve determine of the China Study: Denise Menger- China Study- Fact or Fallacy

Read more: nerdfitness.com

[computerguideworld-blog]

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

New Post has been published on https://computerguideto.com/awesome/paleo-diet-beginner-guide-7-things-you-should-know-before-eating-like-a-caveman/

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

So you wanna learn about the Paleo Diet, aka” the Caveman Diet ,” eh?

This is one of the most popular diets on the planet right now( up there with the Keto Diet ), and I bet you have questions.

Well I got answers, sucka!

And lots of LEGO photos.

In this massive guide, I’m going to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the Paleolithic Diet( click each link to go right to that section ):

What is the Paleo Diet and how does it work ? Will I lose weight on the Paleo Diet ? What can I eat on the Paleo Diet ? What foods CAN’T I eat on the Paleo Diet ? Can I feed grains on the Paleo Diet ? Can I feed dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I feed cheese on the Paleo Diet ? Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of foods on the Paleo Diet What does a typical day look like on the Paleo Diet ? Is the Paleo Diet dangerous ? Paleo Recipes& Paleo Resources . Who shouldn’t do the Paleo Diet ? How to do the Paleo Diet safely .

Now, this guide is SUPER long, so we took the liberty of converting it into a nicely designed guidebook for easy consumption( not literal intake, unless you print it on bacon ).

Grab your Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet free when you sign on in the box below: Get the FREE eBook! The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Paleo!

Discover if Paleo is for you

The one simple trick to know if your food is Paleo-friendly

Easy Paleo recipes for beginners to get you started

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

As the great Mr. Flintstone once said, “Yabadabadooooo!”

What is the Paleo Diet and How does it Work?

Oh lord, another “diet.”

I know, it sounds like a fad/ marketing ploy, but The Paleo Diet isn’t really a “diet,” and it’s actually quite logical when you think about it.

It’s also the most time-tested diet ever.

Here’s the ENTIRE diet in a nutshell :P TAGEND

” If a cave person didn’t eat it, neither should you .”

As the theory runs, tens of thousands of years ago, before Nike, Cap’n Crunch, and Healthy Choice meals, our ancient ancestors flourished as hunter-gatherers.

Although it’s been a really long time, our genetics haven’t changed that much since then.

And yet…these days we’re overweight, out of shape, stressed out, unhappy, sleep deprived and dying from far too many preventable cancers due to lifestyle choices.

So what the hell happened?

Agriculture!

And then delivery and Netflix.

A few thousand years ago, humans detected farming, the agricultural revolution took off, and we advanced from hunter-gatherers to farmers.

We settled down, formed societies, and the human race progressed to what we are today. Which is obviously great for a number of reasons :P TAGEND

Not get eaten by wild animals Electricity Automobiles Nintendo

The problem is that our bodies never adjusted properly to eating all the grains and sugar that we’re now consuming.

As paleo guru Robb Wolf sets it, should be considered a 100 -yard football field :P TAGEND

The first 99.5 yards are how long Homo-Sapiens spent as hunter-gatherers. As they became Genuinely good at hunting and meeting our bodies adapted to that lifestyle over thousands of years.

That last half-yard represents our species after the agricultural revolution, where our diet has changed( but our genetics haven’t ).

So, instead of loading up on meat, vegetables and seasonal fruits, we’ve become a species “dependent” upon grains- bread, pasta, rice, corn, and so on.

66% of us are overweight, 33% are considered obese, and those numbers are only getting worse.[ 1 ]

Clearly something’s not right, and we need to fix it.

The Paleo Diet is an effort to go back to our ancestral roots.

To start eating how we’re biologically designed to eat, allowing us to tap into our genetic potential and start live healthier immediately.

To recap the rules of the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Only eat foods a caveman would eat See Rule# 1

Note that it doesn’t mention calorie counting or snack day or macro tracking. That’s part of the popularity of this diet: feed paleo approved foods when you’re hungry, and that’s it.

Will I Lose Weight on the Paleo Diet?

This is the question we get above all else :P TAGEND

” Will the Paleo Diet help me lose weight ?”

Probably. If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

It’s helped many people achieve jaw-dropping transformations, including my friend Saint,( whose narrative you can read here ):

Or Staci from Team NF, our leading female trainer in our 1-on-1 Coaching Program ):

The Paleo Diet will work for you, if you do it right.

You need to have the right mindset, you need to focus on the right foods, and you need to structure your environment so that you’re not seduced to backslide and abandon the Paleo Diet after a few days.

However, it has nothing to do with what Fred Flintstone ate or didn’t eat.

It comes down to science and thermodynamics.

As I point out in our article on How to Lose weight: What’s the Perfect Diet( For me ?), if you want to lose weight :P TAGEND

Eat fewer calories than you burn every day. Wishing to also be healthy? Eat mostly real food.

Want to KEEP the weight off?

Add# 3: Do those two things consistently for a decade.

Here’s WHY you’ll lose weight on the Paleo Diet:

You’re only feeing meat, fish, veggies, fruits, and nuts. These are foods that are full of nutrients, will make you feel full, but don’t have nearly as many calories as junk food. You are altogether eliminating calorie-dense, often nutritionally insufficient, unhealthy foods. This entails no grains( pasta, bread, rice ), no dairy , no beans. It also entails no soda , no candy , no sugar.

And yup. When you only feed real food and avoid all unhealthy food, you’re more likely than not going to run a caloric deficit- and thus lose weight.

Let me share a really obvious example.

200 calories of broccoli get you enough to fill up an entire plate :P TAGEND

Or … 200 calories will get you exactly 1/2 a Snickers bar :P TAGEND

Look at that: nobody can eat that much broccoli, and nobody only fees half a candy bar!

My point is this: by eating Paleo-approved foods, you’re more likely than not to eat fewer calories than you did in the past automatically, which can lead to weight loss.

I dig into this in even greater detail in” Why can’t I lose weight ?” but it all comes down to” calories in, calories out .”

So YES, the Paleo Diet MIGHT help you lose weight.

You simply need to eat fewer calories than you burn every day( Here’s how to calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure ). And that is easier when you are eliminating foods that people tend to overeat :P TAGEND

Candy Soda Pasta Bread Dairy

But that’s all about what we’re eliminating. What are we keeping !?

what Can I eat on The Paleo diet?

In order to follow the Paleo Diet Lifestyle, here are the foods that are Paleo approved :P TAGEND

Meat*- steak, ham, pork, bison, boar. Organs- liver, kidneys, heart. Marrow- find a topic here? Eat ALL parts of the animal! Fowl- chicken, duck, hen, turkey…things with wings that( try to) fly. Fish- cod, tuna, salmon, and so on. Eggs- Look for omega-3 enriched cage-free eggs. Vegetable- spinach, broccoli, kale, carrots, peppers, zucchini, onions, etc. Petroleum- minimally processed, derived from plants: olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil. Fats: ghee, lard, or other animal fats. Fruit- apples, pears, bananas, grapes, strawberries. Nut- almonds, walnuts, cashews, and their respective butters( almond butter is so good !) Tubers- Sweet potatoes and yams.

* If you can, aim for grass-fed beef and organic fruits and veggies. But don’t go break the bank with your food buys. Merely do the best you can.

As the Paleo Diet explains: Pick any of the foods from that listing and eat as much as you want of them.

You might have noticed that a lot of the foods above are loaded with fat. And depending on what your mom told you growing up, you might believe fat is the devil.

So let me address that right away…

Does Eating Fat Make You Fat?

If you’re cut back on carbs, that means you’ll need to fill the void in your diet with the most controversial macronutrient :P TAGEND

Fat!

It’s gotten a bad rap over the past number of decades, so companies have been doing everything possible to induce everything low fat and “healthy! ”( while adding all sorts of preservatives, chemicals, and sugar ).

Yup…cut out the fat, increase the carbs….and look where THAT has gotten us.

Why has fat been vilified? Rather than get into the politics of it myself, I’ll let Gary Taubes, writer of the unbelievably thorough and well-researched Good Calories, Bad Calories take over.

As he discusses in an article he wrote for the New York Times a decade ago: [ 2 ]

These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of day.

In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980′ s, and that this was coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma.( Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period .)

They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and real life to be dismal failings, and that on top of everything is, the percentage of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades.

Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as would be expected.” That is very disconcerting ,” Willett says.” It suggests that something else bad is happening .”

” Low fat” foods were created to follow conventional wisdom that fat hit you fat( which as stated in the above article doesn’t stand up to scrutiny ).

When a company makes a low fat food, they remove the fat and have to replace the flavor with something.

That “something” is usually sugar( and often more calories ).

Crap.

So, according to Taubes and Paleo folks, fat has been vilified and the real focus should have been on sugar and carbs all along.

Because healthy fats are valuable additions to our diet.

Here are some examples of Paleo-Approved Healthy Fats :P TAGEND

Avocados Almond( and almond butter) Fatty cuts of meat Walnuts Coconut oil Olive oil

In the Paleo Diet, fat constructions up a large portion of one’s diet.

If you’re worried about consuming fat and how it will affect your cholesterol, read our Full Guide to Cholesterol

WhAT Foods Can’t I eat On the Paleo Diet?

If you are looking to strictly follow the Paleo Diet, then you can’t eat foods that did not exist back in” Caveman day .”

Why?

Because- as those in favour of the diet point out- cavemen couldn’t eat those foods because they didn’t exist. There was no way to create cereal and candy – you could only eat what you discovered or hunted.

So, that’s what the Paleo Diet advocates as the reason for avoiding these foods. And it serves as a good mental model to check with yourself: “Could a caveman have eaten this meal? ”

And when you start to answer this question, you identify the foods that you’re not allowed to eat on the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Grains like pasta, cereal bread, and rice Dairy like milk and cheese Candy, cookies, ice cream, and other processed foods

The Paleo Diet also almost completely eliminates sugar outside of fruit. No candy. No soda. No powdered donuts. Yup, even the mini white ones from the grocery store where you can eat like 100 of them( accidentally, of course ).

Many studies have shown that an incredible number of diseases and lifestyle issues can be reversed by cutting out sugar and processed foods.[ 3 ]

But I understand grains and dairy are a bit more complex.

Let me explain :P TAGEND Can I Eat Grains on the Paleo Diet?

Unfortunately , nope.

The Caveman reason why: Grains require some amount of processing, and thus Cavemen would not have consume them.

The science and psychological reason why: we have a tendency to overeat grains and the other ” no no” foods on the Paleo Diet. They are calorically dense, nutrient insufficient, and they can wreak havoc on some people’s blood sugar levels.

This leads to a sugar rush followed by a accident, which can lead to more emotional or hungry overeating…and the process starts again.

Rather than me explain that part with thousands of words, just watch this three-minute video-” Why You Got Fat :”

Let’s get into some more reasons Paleo proponents indicate avoiding grains: most contain gluten and lectins.

What are they and what’s wrong with them? I’m so glad you asked :P TAGEND

Gluten is a protein found in things like rye, wheat, and barley. It’s now being said that much of our population may be gluten-intolerant( hence all the new “gluten-free! ” items popping up everywhere ). Over time, those people who have gluten intolerant can develop a dismal array of medical conditions from ingesting gluten: dermatitis, joint ache, reproductive problems, acid reflux, and more.[ 4 ] Lectins are natural toxins that are present in grains to defend against consumption! Yup. Grains have evolved to keep themselves from being feed by us. These lectins are not a fan of our gastrointestinal tract, and they avoid the tract from repairing itself from normal wear and tear. This can cause all kinds of damage.

Long story short: many people cannot process grains properly, and they are usually the food that causes people to eat too many calories. So by eliminating grains from your diet, you’re more likely than not going to eat fewer calories without counting calories.

That’s a Paleo win!

Do I Need to Avoid Carbs on the Paleo Diet?

Not necessarily.

That depends on your goals and your body – you are a special snowflake!

Some people function well on a high fat, low carb diet.

Others function better on a high carb, low fat diet.

Personally, I function better on a higher carb, lower fat diet( which is how I lost 22 pounds in 6 months ).

I will say the Paleo Diet is USUALLY a Low Carb diet, and large quantities of carbs are not required for somebody to be healthy regular diet.[ 5 ].

After all, carbs aren’t evil- they’re just…carbs.

Here is the logic and psychology behind why the Paleo Diet is low carb :P TAGEND

On a typical Western diet, we ingest plenty o’ carbs, and our bodies convert those carbs to a sugar called “glucose.” This is our body’s preferred method of fueling itself.

In the absence of carbs to create glucose to fuel our bodies, we have to do a few other things instead :P TAGEND

Transform stored fat into glycerol and fatty acids( this process is called lipolysis ). Burn fatty acids for energy or transform the fatty acids into glucose for energy( this is called gluconeogenesis) In the absence of glucose( through fasting or following a Keto Diet ), your body can create ketones for fuel( called “ketogenesis” ).

We’re going to focus on the forms of weight loss NOT related to ” ketogenesis .” Unless you are avoiding all carbohydrates while running Paleo, or you are doing long fasts, you most likely won’t be in ketosis while going Paleo.

We do cover Paleo vs Keto: Which is Better if you’re deciding between the two.

Back to weight loss and Paleo: when you cut back on carbs, and thus most likely ALSO cut back on total calories ingested, you are creating a caloric deficit in your body.

And eat a consistent deficit over a long enough time period, BOOM caveman weight loss.

So, fewer carbs= less glucose in your system, less sugar crashes, less “hangry” moments and smaller chance of overeating= fewer calories consumed on average.

If you’re worried about adherence to the diet, I understand – it’s the toughest part of Paleo- sticking with it!

Knowing what to eat is part of it, but following this fairly restrictive lifestyle in a modern environment surrounded by cookies and candy and bagels and pasta is really difficult!

If this whole” Paleo, Carbs, and Weight Loss” thing is stressing you out, you’re not alone!

In fact, people like you are the reason we created our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program!

We work with busy people like you to structure a complete life overhaul: handcrafted workout routines, accountability, mindset alters, and nutritional strategies.

Can I feed Dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I eat Cheese On the Paleo Diet?

This also depends. Strict Paleo folks tend to stay away from it- a portion of the world is lactose intolerant, and those that aren’t usually have at least some type of an aversion to it.

Why? Because hunter-gatherers didn’t lug cows around with them while traveling- milk was ingested as a baby through breast milk from their mother, and that was it.

So as Paleo-stans will tell ya, our bodies weren’t designed for massive dairy consumption.

There is evidence that some adaptation to dairy has taken place throughout the years, specifically with people with ancestry in herding cultures, but this is not the majority of the population.[ 6 ]

Paleo purists will avoid dairy like the beset, while other paleo-ish people have found that ingesting dairy in its various forms work for their genetics, goals, and lifestyle.

“What about Cheese? Can I feed cheese on the Paleo Diet? ”

You do you, boo. But if you’re going Strict Paleo, then unfortunately cheese is OUT too.

If you’re just looking to lose some weight while following a “mostly Paleo” lifestyle, then adding some high quality cheese into some of your snacks can be okay.

Some cheeses will tend to have lower sums of lactose or casein- the parts of dairy that can cause digestion challenges.

So, if you’re not sure your body is processing dairy properly, remove dairy from your diet and only introduce it back in when you’re ready to see how your body responds.

If you’re not losing weight while feeing a” Paleo+ Dairy” Diet, you’re still feeing too many calories.

Consider cutting out dairy and see how your body responds.

Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of Foods on the Paleo Diet

Because I like you as person or persons, I’ve created a printable Paleo Diet Shopping List PDF you can bring with you to the grocery store to help you decide what to buy and what to avoid.

Simply right click on the image below and save as :P TAGEND

Feel free to publish this out and bring it with you to the grocery store. If you happen to run into somebody else who has ALSO printed out this sheet, feel free to high five each other while singing Baltimora!

What is a Typical Day Like on the Paleo Diet?

Here is an example of a typical day on “The Paleo Diet” :P TAGEND

Breakfast: Omelet with spinach with fresh fruit. Lunch: Grilled chicken, kale, and avocado salad with vinegar and olive oil. Snack: Apple slicings and almond butter. Dinner: Steak with asparagus and sweet potato fries. Dessert: Strawberries and a piece of 85% darknes chocolate.

That doesn’t audio so bad, right?

Make sure you check out our Paleo Diet Recipes and Resource section too for more options.

Start with a good protein source with each dinner( eggs, steak, chicken, fish, pork) and then add a vegetable or fruit.

That’s it.

If you feel hungry constantly, understand that changing up a diet can cause a body a few weeks of adjustment.

Remember, your body is learning to operate on both fewer calories AND fewer carbs- depending on how low carb you go this could be a DRAMATIC change.

And this is often referred to as “carb flu, ” and it can be miserable! Your body might take multiple weeks to adjust to these new habits.

Going from a processed, high sodium diet to a paleo diet you will very often end up eating too little sodium, which is an essential nutrient.

So if you’re feeling tired all the time, try adding some salt to your food or consider an electrolyte supplement- this is what we recommend with our Keto readers too.

Is the Paleo Diet Dangerous?

The dismissive criticisms of the Paleo Diet generally fall into one of three categories :P TAGEND

Cavemen had short lifespans. So there. A recent article said that cavemen feed grains. So there. Eating that much meat is unhealthy. So there.

As I said at the beginning of this article, it doesn’t matter what cavemen or cavewomen ACTUALLY ate.

The reason this diet runs has nothing to do with what our bodies are designed to eat or what cavemen ate 1,000 s of years ago.

The Paleo Diet CAN help you lose weight because it gets you to cut out junk food, focus on eating real food, and gives you a framework to evaluate speedily every food choice :P TAGEND

” Did a caveman eat this? Yes or no .”

That’s it!

By following this ONE rules, you’re likely to eat fewer calories than you used to, and thus you’re likely to end up healthier than before.

I personally don’t follow a Paleo Diet, but I do appreciate the fact that it’s easy to comprehend and gets people to take a more active approach in their food!

So, disregarding the fear mongering, tenet, and anthropological criticisms of what cavemen actually ate, what are the ACTUAL criticisms of the Paleo Diet?

# 1)” Why is the Paleo Diet expensive ?”

Admittedly, while I recommend eating organic fruits and veggies, free-range chicken, and grass-fed beef whenever possible, these products can be more expensive in conventional stores due to the processes needed to get them there.

However, farmers’ marketplaces often have well-priced meats, eggs, fruits, and vegetables that are locally grown and unbelievably healthy.

Even if you’re spending a little more money than before, when you factor in your overall health, spending a few extra bucks on healthier food now is a wiser investment than thousands later on costly medical expenses.

Also, if you’re really short on cash, feeing the non-organic or grain-fed version of a meat, vegetable, or eggs is still better than eating breads, pasta, fast food, and the like.

Most people simply compare the cost of a paleo meal with ramen noodles or pasta and bread and determine Paleo is prohibitively expensive.

Sure, it’s more expensive than those foods, but if you are smart with your fund you can eat a much healthier snack and do really pretty inexpensively. Check out this guide on” How to Eat Healthy Without Breaking the Bank” for some tip-off and tricks.

( This doesn’t even factor in the whole” if you feed cheap unhealthy food now, you’ll pay thousands in medical bills and hospital visits and medications later” argument which is valid too ).

# 2)” But cavemen had short lifespans! Of course they don’t have the diseases we do. We live style longer now .”

I agree with you here, but merely because you don’t have to deal with the dangers of living back then. Again we don’t really care to live like cave people!

This is SIMPLY a construct that can help many attain more informed food choices.

# 3)” Plenty of societies around the world consume grains and aren’t fat and unhealthy like us .”

Awesome- it seems like those people have found a solution that works for them. Have you read our big ass guidebook to eating a Plant-Based Diet?

The China Study is frequently cited when blaming the Paleo Diet- are concentrated on a vegetarian diet and ingesting rice is healthier than the Paleo Diet. I respectfully disagree with the conclusions drawn from that volume but that’s awesome if you want to go plant-based! [ 7 ] I’ll leave you to induce your own conclusions based on your own self-experimentation.

You’re here to learn about the Paleo Diet though, so let’s keep the focus there.

# 4)” But this is just a meat diet, and eating all meat is bad !”

First of all, consider your sources and do your search before jumping to the conclusions.

Next, this is not an all meat diet like the Carnivore Diet or uber-low carb diets like Keto or Atkins. The biggest component of the Paleo Diet?

Vegetables!

Every meal in a true Paleo diet has a moderate amount of healthy( properly raised chicken, grass-fed beef, hormone free, etc .) meat combined with nutritious veggies or a moderate quantity of fruit.

# 5)” The Paleo Diet is too restrictive and I can’t live like this .”

This is the most valid criticism I personally have of the diet, as the best diet plan is the one you actually stick with and be adhered to on! The goal shouldn’t be to go” full paleo” for a few weeks merely to go back to how you were eating before.

Instead, the goal here should be to rethink your relationship with food and develop a strategy that you can live with permanently.

There’s nothing worse than going on diets and gaining and losing the same 20 pounds over and over. The Paleo Diet, like other diets, WORKS ONLY IF YOU STICK WITH IT PERMANENTLY!

This attains sense after all: stimulate temporary alterations, get temporary results, right?

# 6)” Steve, I hate vegetables. How do you induce veggies savour better? HALP .”

I got you. Heres how to start liking vegetables and how to construct veggies savour better.

We know this all too well, and we have helped thousands of people slowwwwly transition their diet over a long period of time to make change less scary, more permanent, and thus construct the weight loss permanent too!

If you’re overwhelmed or scared of changing too much, or maybe you’re just sick of dieting and want to find a solution that works for your busy lifestyle and situation, schedule a bellow with us to gain a better understanding of our 1-on-1 coaching program :P TAGEND

Paleo Recipes and Paleo Resource

Here’s our full list of Nerd Fitness Paleo/ Healthy recipes, and here are my three favourites :P TAGEND

10 Minutes of Prep, 10 Easy Meals Paleo spaghetti: freaking delicious, I promise How to Make Mini Paleo Pizzas .

I’ve also compiled a list of my favorite sites and recipe books around the internet that can help you get started :P TAGEND

# 1) Nom Nom Paleo -~ ATAGEND Michelle Tam and her husband Henry are amazing people, and their Paleo Blog is absolutely phenomenal. Great photos. Well written. Organized intelligently.

Their “Nom Nom Paleo” cookbook is a fun resource too, and a great place to get started with cooking for your Paleo lifestyle. Oh, what’s that? You have kids and a spouse and you’re all trying to eat healthier too? This volume is perfect for that as well!

# 2) Mark’s Daily Apple– Easily the most comprehensive resource on the internet for the Paleo Diet- Mark writes an article every weekday about everything Paleo, and it usually blows me away. Some of the posts can get overwhelming, so I suggest starting with his Primal Blueprint 101.

The Primal Blueprint– If you want to read about this stuff in a volume rather than on a computer screen, Mark’s book The Primal Blueprint is a great place to get started on not only what to eat, but why you should be eating it.

It’s educational, funny, real-world applicable, and teaches you how to primalize( just made that up) the rest of your life too.

# 3) Robb Wolf– Another great resource, and a guy I’ve already referenced in this article multiple times. Check out his site for a comprehensive FAQ on all things Paleo, a shopping list pdf( right-click and save ), and plenty of humor.

The Paleo Solution– This article would have been finished 3 hours earlier, but before I wrote it, I read ALL of Robb’s new book. It severely had me chuckling out loud at certain points- not bad for a volume on diet!

This book is a little less forgiving than Mark’s book above, but it’s still a great read.

# 4) Loren Cordain– Loren is considered the leading expert on the Paleo Diet- Robb is actually one of his students/ followers/ Padawans.

Dr. Cordain is probably the foremost authority on this type of eating, which is why I really enjoyed reading both of his books.

MORE RECIPE Resource :P TAGEND

Ready or Not! 150 Make Now Recipes– The newer book from Michelle Tam of Nom Nom Paleo. It’s super fun. Plus she’s wearing a Nerd FItness t-shirt in some of her photos in the book, so I might be sliiiightly biased Mark’s Daily Apple– Although he sells the cookbook on Amazon, Mark also lists over 100 free primal recipes on his site. Pick something on the list, go buy the ingredients, and follow the instructions! So easy even a caveman can do it. Everyday Paleo– Great paintings, easy to follow recipes, and pretty interesting combinations. Click on FOOD in the Nav bar, and the meals are broken down into breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

If you’re curious about The Paleo Diet’s recent popularity and thus it’s criticisms, we’ve written two other pieces on Nerd Fitness that might be of interest :P TAGEND

” The Paleo Diet Debunked ??” where I address a few of the more recent criticisms that have popped up.

” In Defense of a Paleo-Ish Diet” where I cover how to live a largely Paleo lifestyle but still enjoy the modern benefits of society.

Who Should and Who Shouldn’t Do the Paleo Diet?

I’m a fan of the Paleo Diet for the RIGHT person:

I love mental models that help us make sense of the world, and I suppose for SOME people, the Paleo Diet has certainly help them cut down on overeating.

I personally do NOT follow a Paleo Diet, but I do have rules that I follow.

Do whatever builds you happy and accommodates in your schedule. I like this kind of stress-free eating.

Regardless of whether or not grains should be vilified, I love this diet because I know it WORKS. I know people that have lost incredible amounts of weight and altered their lives within a matter of months.

People like Staci :P TAGEND

Regardless of how you feel about grains, we can all agree that eating more natural foods and less processed foods is better for you.

YOU SHOULD DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

You struggle with portion control( entailing you can’t eat just one cookie, or you tend to keep eating even when you’re full ). You can stick with the changes you’re making permanently! Remember, temporary alters make temporary results. You don’t mind eliminating some of your favorite foods entirely.

YOU SHOULD NOT DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

The idea of giving up non-paleo foods makes you want to cry. You don’t mind learning about calories and want to track your food. Another diet sounds like a better fit for you!

Consider some of these other options instead:

The Mediterranean Diet which still includes portions of things like pasta or bread( note: I said Sections , not platefuls )! Our guide on healthy eating and slowly adjust your nutrition- which would be my recommendation. My paleo-ish dietary philosophy that maintains me healthy and happy.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to make permanent adjustments to your nutrition.

If you don’t see yourself being able to permanently follow a Paleo Diet, I would advise a more’ wade in from the shallow end‘ approach to dietary change!

How to Do the Paleo Diet Safely

Maybe you’re ready to try out this Paleo lifestyle, but you can’t commit fully. There are certain foods you refuse to give up, or you can’t afford to buy grass-fed beef at the moment.

That’s okay!

If you can even make a few small changes here and there( cut out liquid calories, switching out your rice for steamed veggies, cut back on bread, etc .) you’ll start to see some changes.

Remember, 20% healthier is better than 0% healthier- as you get more comfortable with the changes you can increase that percentage.

After all, I know how tough it is to stay loyal to a strict diet, especially without a plan to follow. It’s why we created free resources that can help you reach your goals faster without you also going crazy.

Get rid of the temptation: if you’re gonna go at this thing with a full head of steam, remove all the junk food from your house.

It’s going to take a few weeks for your body to adjust to burning fat instead of glucose, and you might want to eat poorly here and there. If there’s no food in your house to tempt you, it will be much easier to stay on target.

Now, it’s your turn.

Have you tried the Paleo Diet yet? What was your experience like? Have a criticism of the diet that I didn’t cover before? Do you have a favorite paleo resource?

Remember, one of the major Rules of the Rebellion is to question everything!

I hope this article gives you some food for thought( terrible pun, I know ), and gives you permission to question conventional wisdom and start addressing the issues in your diet!

In addition to this Beginner Paleo Guide, I hope you consider checking our 1-on-1 Coaching Program as well.

We have designed this program from the ground up to help people like you change their lives and fix their nutrition in a way that doesn’t suck.

Now, go forth. And feed like a caveman.

-Steve

PS: I’ll leave you with a mention of the Nerd Fitness Academy– it essentially gamifies your experience in transitioning into a Paleo lifestyle and diet, and provides you with specific instruction, meal plans, workouts, and a supportive community.

###

photo sources: cavemen elephant hunt, caveman cooking over flame, cavemen hunt paleo bear, milk truck logo, darth vader vendor, storm trooper tomato, lego cook, chef and lego pig, lego explorer, lego muffin, lego bread and carbs, frozen caveman grok lego, lego clock, lego caveman forge for food, caveman with wheel, darth vader and ostrich lego, easing into water lego, lego man with pasta

Footnotes( returns to text)

Adult Obesity Prevalence Map CDC.gov

What if its all Been a Big Fat Lie ? Take a look at this time magazine article on cancer patients who switched to a zero-sugar diet and considered positive results. You can read our full guide on Gluten check out the Inuit Paradox for a great read on societies that exist without almost any carbohydrates If you want to nerd out about this stuff, go wild with this study This is the most well-researched criticism I’ve receive of the China Study: Denise Menger- China Study- Fact or Fallacy

Read more: nerdfitness.com

[fitnessexpert00-blog]

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

New Post has been published on https://fitnessqia.com/awesome/paleo-diet-beginner-guide-7-things-you-should-know-before-eating-like-a-caveman/

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

So you wanna learn about the Paleo Diet, aka” the Caveman Diet ,” eh?

This is one of the most popular diets on the planet right now( up there with the Keto Diet ), and I bet you have questions.

Well I got answers, sucka!

And lots of LEGO photos.

In this massive guidebook, I’m going to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the Paleolithic Diet( click each link to go right to that segment ):

What is the Paleo Diet and how does it run ? Will I lose weight on the Paleo Diet ? What can I eat on the Paleo Diet ? What foods CAN’T I eat on the Paleo Diet ? Can I eat grains on the Paleo Diet ? Can I feed dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I feed cheese on the Paleo Diet ? Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of foods on the Paleo Diet What does a typical day look like on the Paleo Diet ? Is the Paleo Diet dangerous ? Paleo Recipes& Paleo Resource . Who shouldn’t do the Paleo Diet ? How to do the Paleo Diet safely .

Now, this guide is SUPER long, we are therefore took the liberty of converting it into a nicely designed guidebook for easy consumption( not literal intake, unless you publish it on bacon ).

Grab your Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet free when you sign up in the box below: Get the FREE eBook! The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Paleo!

Discover if Paleo is for you

The one simple trick to know if your food is Paleo-friendly

Easy Paleo recipes for beginners to get you started

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

As the great Mr. Flintstone once said, “Yabadabadooooo!”

What is the Paleo Diet and How does it Work?

Oh lord, another “diet.”

I know, it sounds like a fad/ marketing gambit, but The Paleo Diet isn’t really a “diet,” and it’s actually quite logical when you think about it.

It’s also the most time-tested diet ever.

Here’s the ENTIRE diet in a nutshell :P TAGEND

” If a cave person didn’t eat it, neither should you .”

As the hypothesi goes, tens of thousands of years ago, before Nike, Cap’n Crunch, and Healthy Choice snacks, our ancient ancestors flourished as hunter-gatherers.

Although it’s been a really long time, our genetics haven’t altered that much since then.

And yet…these days we’re overweight, out of shape, stressed out, unhappy, sleep deprived and dying from far too many preventable illness due to lifestyle choices.

So what the hell happened?

Agriculture!

And then delivery and Netflix.

A few thousand years ago, humans detected farming, the agricultural revolution took off, and we advanced from hunter-gatherers to farmers.

We determined down, formed societies, and the human race progressed to what we are today. Which is obviously great for a number of reasons :P TAGEND

Not getting eaten by wild animals Electricity Automobiles Nintendo

The problem is that our bodies never adjusted properly to eating all the grains and sugar that we’re now consuming.

As paleo guru Robb Wolf sets it, should be considered a 100 -yard football field :P TAGEND

The first 99.5 yards are how long Homo-Sapiens spent as hunter-gatherers. As they became Really good at hunting and collecting our bodies adapted to that lifestyle over thousands of years.

That last half-yard represents our species after the agricultural revolution, where our diet has shifted( but our genetics haven’t ).

So, instead of loading up on meat, vegetables and seasonal fruits, we’ve become a species “dependent” upon grains- bread, pasta, rice, corn, and so on.

66% of us are overweight, 33% are considered obese, and those numbers are only getting worse.[ 1 ]

Clearly something’s not right, and we need to fix it.

The Paleo Diet is an effort to go back to our ancestral roots.

To start eating how we’re biologically designed to eat, allowing us to tap into our genetic potential and start live healthier immediately.

To recap the rules of the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Only feed foods a caveman would eat See Rule# 1

Note that it doesn’t mention calorie counting or meal period or macro tracking. That’s part of the popularity of this diet: feed paleo approved foods when you’re hungry, and that’s it.

Will I Lose Weight on the Paleo Diet?

This is the question we get above all else :P TAGEND

” Will the Paleo Diet assist me lose weight ?”

Probably. If you can actually apply the rules of the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

It’s helped many people attain jaw-dropping transformations, including my friend Saint,( whose narrative you can read here ):

Or Staci from Team NF, our result female trainer in our 1-on-1 Coaching Program ):

The Paleo Diet will work for you, if you do it right.

You need to have the right mindset, you need to focus on the right foods, and you need to structure your environment so that you’re not seduced to backslide and abandon the Paleo Diet after a few days.

However, it has nothing to do with what Fred Flintstone ate or didn’t eat.

It comes down to science and thermodynamics.

As I point out in our article on How to Lose Weight: What’s the Perfect Diet( For me ?), if you want to lose weight :P TAGEND

Eat fewer calories than you burn every day. Want to also be healthy? Eat mostly real food.

Want to KEEP the weight off?

Add# 3: Do those two things consistently for a decade.

Here’s WHY you’ll lose weight on the Paleo Diet:

You’re merely feeing meat, fish, veggies, fruit, and nuts. These are foods that are full of nutrients, will construct you feel full, but don’t have nearly as many calories as junk food. You are altogether eliminating calorie-dense, often nutritionally insufficient, unhealthy foods. This means no grains( pasta, bread, rice ), no dairy , no beans. It also entails no soda , no candy , no sugar.

And yup. When you only feed real food and avoided all unhealthy food, you’re more likely than not going to run a caloric deficit- and thus lose weight.

Let me share a really obvious example.

200 calories of broccoli get you enough to fill up an entire plate :P TAGEND

Or … 200 calories will get you exactly 1/2 a Snickers bar :P TAGEND

Look at that: nobody can eat that much broccoli, and nobody only fees half a candy bar!

My point is this: by eating Paleo-approved foods, you’re more likely than not to eat fewer calories than you did in the past automatically, which can lead to weight loss.

I dig into this in even greater detail in” Why can’t I lose weight ?” but it all comes down to” calories in, calories out .”

So YES, the Paleo Diet MIGHT help you lose weight.

You simply need to eat fewer calories than you burn every day( Here’s how to calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure ). And that is easier when you are eliminating foods that people tend to overeat :P TAGEND

Candy Soda Pasta Bread Dairy

But that’s all about what we’re eliminating. What are we maintaining !?

what Can I eat on The Paleo diet?

In order to follow the Paleo Diet Lifestyle, here are the foods that are Paleo endorse :P TAGEND

Meat*- steak, ham, pork, bison, boar. Organs- liver, kidneys, heart. Marrow- insuring a topic here? Eat ALL parts of the animal! Fowl- chicken, duck, hen, turkey…things with wings that( try to) fly. Fish- cod, tuna, salmon, and so on. Eggs- Look for omega-3 enriched cage-free eggs. Veggie- spinach, broccoli, kale, carrots, peppers, zucchini, onions, etc. Petroleum- minimally processed, derived from plants: olive oil, coconut oil, avocado petroleum. Fats: ghee, lard, or other animal fats. Fruits- apples, pears, bananas, grapes, strawberries. Nuts- almonds, walnuts, cashews, and their respective butters( almond butter is so good !) Tubers- Sweet potatoes and yams.

* If you can, aim for grass-fed beef and organic fruits and vegetables. But don’t go break the bank with your food purchases. Merely do the best you can.

As the Paleo Diet explains: Pick any of the foods from that listing and eat as much as you want of them.

You might have noticed that a lot of the foods above are loaded with fat. And depending on what your mom told you growing up, you might believe fat is the devil.

So let me address that right away…

Does Eating Fat Make You Fat?

If you’re cutting back on carbs, that means you’ll need to fill the void in your diet with the most controversial macronutrient :P TAGEND

Fat!

It’s gotten a bad rap over the past number of decades, so companies have been doing everything possible to make everything low fat and “healthy! ”( while adding all sorts of preservatives, chemicals, and sugar ).

Yup…cut out the fat, increase the carbs….and appear where THAT has gotten us.

Why has fat been vilified? Rather than get into the politics of it myself, I’ll let Gary Taubes, author of the incredibly thorough and well-researched Good Calories, Bad Calories take over.

As he discusses in an article he wrote for the New York Times a decade ago: [ 2 ]

These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of period.

In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980′ s, and that this was coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma.( Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period .)

They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and real life to be dismal failings, and that on top of it all, the percentage of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades.

Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as expected to be completed.” That is very disconcerting ,” Willett says.” It suggests that something else bad is happening .”

” Low fat” foods were created to follow conventional wisdom that fat construct you fat( which as stated in the above article doesn’t stand up to scrutiny ).

When a company makes a low fat food, they remove the fat and have to replace the flavor with something.

That “something” is usually sugar( and often more calories ).

Crap.

So, according to Taubes and Paleo folks, fat has been vilified and the real focus should have been on sugar and carbs all along.

Because healthy fats are valuable additions to our diet.

Here are some examples of Paleo-Approved Healthy Fats :P TAGEND

Avocados Almond( and almond butter) Fatty cuts of meat Walnuts Coconut oil Olive oil

In the Paleo Diet, fat constructions up a large portion of one’s diet.

If you’re worried about consuming fat and how it will affect your cholesterol, read our Full Guide to Cholesterol

WhAT Foods Can’t I feed On the Paleo Diet?

If you are looking to strictly follow the Paleo Diet, then you can’t eat foods that did not exist back in” Caveman day .”

Why?

Because- as those in favour of the diet point out- cavemen couldn’t eat those foods because they didn’t exist. There was no way to create cereal and candy – you could only eat what you observed or hunted.

So, that’s what the Paleo Diet advocates as the reason for avoiding these foods. And it serves as a good mental model to check with yourself: “Could a caveman have eaten this snack? ”

And when you start to answer this question, you specifying the foods that you’re not allowed to eat on the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Grains like pasta, cereal bread, and rice Dairy like milk and cheese Candy, cookies, ice cream, and other processed foods

The Paleo Diet also almost completely eliminates sugar outside of fruit. No candy. No soda. No powdered donuts. Yup, even the mini white ones from the grocery store where you can eat like 100 of them( accidentally, of course ).

Many studies have shown that an incredible number of diseases and lifestyle issues can be reversed by cutting out sugar and processed foods.[ 3 ]

But I understand grains and dairy are a bit more complex.

Let me explain :P TAGEND Can I Eat Grains on the Paleo Diet?

Unfortunately , nope.

The Caveman reason why: Grains require some amount of processing, and thus Cavemen would not have feed them.

The science and psychological reason why: we have a tendency to overeat grains and the other ” no no” foods on the Paleo Diet. They are calorically dense, nutrient deficient, and they can wreak havoc on some people’s blood sugar levels.

This leads to a sugar rush be accompanied by a crash, which can lead to more emotional or hungry overeating…and the process starts again.

Rather than me explain that part with thousands of words, just watch this three-minute video-” Why You Got Fat :”

Let’s get into some more reasons Paleo proponents indicate avoiding grains: most contain gluten and lectins.

What are they and what’s wrong with them? I’m so glad you asked :P TAGEND

Gluten is a protein found in things like rye, wheat, and barley. It’s now being said that much of our population may be gluten-intolerant( hence all the new “gluten-free! ” items popping up everywhere ). Over period, those people who have gluten intolerant can develop a dismal array of medical conditions from consuming gluten: dermatitis, joint pain, reproductive problems, acid reflux, and more.[ 4 ] Lectins are natural toxins that are present in grains to defend against consumption! Yup. Grains have evolved to keep themselves from being eaten by us. These lectins are not a fan of our gastrointestinal tract, and they prevent the tract from repairing itself from normal wear and tear. This can cause all kinds of damage.

Long story short: many people cannot process grains properly, and they are usually the food that causes people to eat too many calories. So by eliminating grains from your diet, you’re more likely than not going to eat fewer calories without counting calories.

That’s a Paleo win!

Do I Need to Avoid Carbs on the Paleo Diet?

Not inevitably.

That depends on your goals and your body – you are a special snowflake!

Some people function well on a high fat, low carb diet.

Others function better on a high carb, low fat diet.

Personally, I function better on a higher carb, lower fat diet( which is how I lost 22 pounds in 6 months ).

I will say the Paleo Diet is USUALLY a Low Carb diet, and large quantities of carbs are not required for somebody to be healthy regular diet.[ 5 ].

After all, carbs aren’t evil- they’re just…carbs.

Here is the logic and psychology behind why the Paleo Diet is low carb :P TAGEND

On a typical Western diet, we devour plenty o’ carbs, and our bodies convert those carbs to a sugar called “glucose.” This is our body’s preferred method of fueling itself.

In the absence of carbs to create glucose to fuel our bodies, we have to do a few other things instead :P TAGEND

Transform stored fat into glycerol and fatty acids( this process is called lipolysis ). Burn fatty acids for energy or transform the fatty acids into glucose for energy( this is called gluconeogenesis) In the absence of glucose( through fasting or following a Keto Diet ), your body are generating ketones for gasoline( called “ketogenesis” ).

We’re going to focus on the forms of weight loss NOT related to ” ketogenesis .” Unless you are avoiding all carbohydrates while running Paleo, or you are doing long fasts, you most likely won’t be in ketosis while going Paleo.

We do cover Paleo vs Keto: Which is Better if you’re deciding between the two.

Back to weight loss and Paleo: when you cut back on carbs, and thus most likely ALSO cut back on total calories ate, you are creating a caloric deficit in your body.

And eat a consistent deficit over a long enough time period, BOOM caveman weight loss.

So, fewer carbs= less glucose in your system, less sugar crashes, less “hangry” moments and smaller chance of overeating= fewer calories consumed on average.

If you’re worried about adherence to the diet, I understand – it’s the toughest part of Paleo- sticking with it!

Knowing what to eat is part of it, but following this fairly restrictive lifestyle in a modern environment surrounded by cookies and candy and bagels and pasta is really difficult!

If this whole” Paleo, Carbs, and Weight Loss” thing is emphasizing you out, you’re not alone!

In fact, people like you are the reason we created our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program!

We work with busy people like you to structure a complete life overhaul: handcrafted workout routines, accountability, mindset changes, and nutritional strategies.

Can I feed Dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I feed Cheese On the Paleo Diet?

This also depends. Strict Paleo folks tend to stay away from it- a portion of the world is lactose intolerant, and those that aren’t usually have at least some type of an aversion to it.

Why? Because hunter-gatherers didn’t lug cows around with them while traveling- milk was eaten as a newborn through breast milk from their mom, and that was it.

So as Paleo-stans will tell ya, our bodies weren’t designed for massive dairy consumption.

There is evidence that some adaptation to dairy has taken place throughout the years, specifically with people with pedigree in herding cultures, but this is not the majority of the population.[ 6 ]

Paleo purists will avoid dairy like the plague, while other paleo-ish people have found that devouring dairy in its various sorts work for their genetics, aims, and lifestyle.

“What about Cheese? Can I eat cheese on the Paleo Diet? ”

You do you, boo. But if you’re going Strict Paleo, then regrettably cheese is OUT too.

If you’re just looking to lose some weight while following a “mostly Paleo” lifestyle, then adding some high quality cheese into some of your meals can be okay.

Some cheeses will tend to have lower amounts of lactose or casein- the parts of dairy that can cause digestion challenges.

So, if you’re not sure your body is processing dairy properly, remove dairy from your diet and only introduce it back in when you’re ready to see how your body responds.

If you’re not losing weight while feeing a” Paleo+ Dairy” Diet, you’re still eating too many calories.

Consider cutting out dairy and see how your body responds.

Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of Food on the Paleo Diet

Because I like you as a person, I’ve generated a printable Paleo Diet Shopping List PDF you can bring with you to the grocery store to help you decide what to buy and what to avoid.

Simply right click on the image below and save as :P TAGEND

Feel free to publish this out and bringing it with you to the grocery store. If you happen to run into somebody else who has ALSO printed out this sheet, feel free to high five each other while singing Baltimora!

What is a Typical Day Like on the Paleo Diet?

Here is an example of a typical day on “The Paleo Diet” :P TAGEND

Breakfast: Omelet with spinach with fresh fruit. Lunch: Grilled chicken, kale, and avocado salad with vinegar and olive oil. Snack: Apple slicings and almond butter. Dinner: Steak with asparagus and sweet potato fries. Dessert: Strawberries and a piece of 85% dark chocolate.

That doesn’t voice so bad, right?

Make sure you check out our Paleo Diet Recipes and Resources section too for more options.

Start with a good protein source with each dinner( eggs, steak, chicken, fish, pork) and then add a vegetable or fruit.

That’s it.

If you feel hungry constantly, understand that changing up a diet can cause a body a few weeks of adjustment.

Remember, your body is learning to operate on both fewer calories AND fewer carbs- depending on how low carb you go this could be a DRAMATIC change.

And this is often referred to as “carb flu, ” and it can be miserable! Your body might take multiple weeks to adjust to these new habits.

Going from a processed, high sodium diet to a paleo diet you will very often end up eating too little sodium, which is an essential nutrient.

So if you’re feeling tired all the time, try adding some salt to your food or consider an electrolyte supplement- this is what we recommend with our Keto readers too.

Is the Paleo Diet Dangerous?

The dismissive criticisms of the Paleo Diet generally fall into one of three categories :P TAGEND

Cavemen had short lifespans. So there. A recent article said that cavemen eat grains. So there. Eating that much meat is unhealthy. So there.

As I said at the beginning of this article, it doesn’t matter what cavemen or cavewomen ACTUALLY ate.

The reason this diet works has nothing to do with what our bodies are designed to eat or what cavemen ate 1,000 s of years ago.

The Paleo Diet CAN help you lose weight because it gets you to cut out junk food, focus on eating real food, and gives you a framework to evaluate speedily every food selection :P TAGEND

” Did a caveman eat this? Yes or no .”

That’s it!

By following this ONE rules, you’re likely to eat fewer calories than you used to, and thus you’re likely to end up healthier than before.

I personally don’t follow a Paleo Diet, but I do appreciate the fact that it’s easy to comprehend and gets people to take a more active approach in their food!

So, disregarding the fear mongering, tenet, and anthropological criticisms of what cavemen actually eat, what are the ACTUAL criticisms of the Paleo Diet?

# 1)” Why is the Paleo Diet expensive ?”

Admittedly, while I recommend feeing organic fruits and veggies, free-range chicken, and grass-fed beef whenever possible, these products can be more expensive in conventional stores due to the processes needed to get them there.

However, farmers’ marketplaces often have well-priced meats, eggs, fruit, and vegetables that are locally grown and unbelievably healthy.

Even if you’re spending a little more money than before, when you factor in your overall health, spending a few extra bucks on healthier food now is a wiser investment than thousands later on costly medical expenses.

Also, if you’re really short on money, eating the non-organic or grain-fed version of a meat, vegetable, or eggs is still better than eating bread, pasta, fast food, and the like.

Most people simply compare the cost of a paleo dinner with ramen noodles or pasta and bread and determine Paleo is prohibitively expensive.

Sure, it’s more expensive than those foods, but if you are smart with your fund you can eat a much healthier snack and do really pretty inexpensively. Check out this guide on” How to Eat Healthy Without Breaking the Bank” for some tip-off and tricks.

( This doesn’t even factor in the whole” if you eat inexpensive unhealthy food now, you’ll pay thousands in medical bills and hospital visits and drugs later” argument which is valid too ).

# 2)” But cavemen had short lifespans! Of course they don’t have the diseases we do. We live route longer now .”

I agree with you here, but only because you don’t have to deal with the dangers of living back then. Again we don’t really care to live like cave people!

This is SIMPLY a construct that can help many make more informed food choices.

# 3)” Plenty of societies around the world consume grains and aren’t fat and unhealthy like us .”

Awesome- it seems like those people have found a solution that works for them. Have you read our big ass guidebook to eating a Plant-Based Diet?

The China Study is frequently cited when blaming the Paleo Diet- focusing on a vegetarian diet and devouring rice is healthier than the Paleo Diet. I respectfully disagree with the conclusions be learned from that volume but that’s awesome if you want to go plant-based! [ 7 ] I’ll leave you to make your own conclusions based on your own self-experimentation.

You’re here to learn about the Paleo Diet though, so let’s keep the focus there.

# 4)” But this is just a meat diet, and feeing all meat is bad !”

First of all, consider your sources and do your search before jumping to the conclusions.

Next, this is not an all meat diet like the Carnivore Diet or uber-low carb diets like Keto or Atkins. The biggest component of the Paleo Diet?

Vegetables!

Every meal in a true Paleo diet has a moderate amount of healthy( properly created chicken, grass-fed beef, hormone free, etc .) meat combined with nutritious veggies or a moderate amount of fruit.

# 5)” The Paleo Diet is too restrictive and I can’t live like this .”

This is the most valid criticism I personally have of the diet, as the best diet plan is the one you actually stick with and be adhered to on! The aim shouldn’t be to go” full paleo” for a few weeks only to go back to how you were eating before.

Instead, the goal here should be to rethink your relationship with food and develop a strategy that you can live with permanently.

There’s nothing worse than going on diets and gaining and losing the same 20 pounds over and over. The Paleo Diet, like other diets, WORKS ONLY IF YOU STICK WITH IT PERMANENTLY!

This attains sense after all: build temporary alterations, get temporary outcomes, right?

# 6)” Steve, I dislike veggies. How do you induce veggies savor better? HALP .”

I got you. Heres how to start liking vegetables and how to induce veggies savor better.

We know this all too well, and we have helped thousands of people slowwwwly transition their diet over a long period of time to make change less scary, more permanent, and thus induce the weight loss permanent too!

If you’re overwhelmed or scared of changing too much, or maybe you’re just sick of dieting and want to find a solution that works for your busy lifestyle and situation, schedule a call with us to gain a better understanding of our 1-on-1 coaching program :P TAGEND

Paleo Recipes and Paleo Resource

Here’s our full list of Nerd Fitness Paleo/ Healthy recipes, and here are my three favourites :P TAGEND

10 Minutes of Prep, 10 Easy Meals Paleo spaghetti: freaking delicious, I promise How to Make Mini Paleo Pizzas .

I’ve also compiled a listing of my favorite sites and recipe volumes around the internet that can help you get started :P TAGEND

# 1) Nom Nom Paleo -~ ATAGEND Michelle Tam and her husband Henry are amazing people, and their Paleo Blog is absolutely phenomenal. Great photos. Well written. Organized intelligently.

Their “Nom Nom Paleo” cookbook is a fun resource too, and a great place to get started with cooking for your Paleo lifestyle. Oh, what’s that? You have kids and a spouse and you’re all trying to eat healthier too? This book is perfect for that as well!

# 2) Mark’s Daily Apple– Easily the most comprehensive resource on the internet for the Paleo Diet- Mark writes an article every weekday about everything Paleo, and it usually blows me away. Some of the posts can get overwhelming, so I indicate starting with his Primal Blueprint 101.

The Primal Blueprint– If you want to read about this stuff in a volume rather than on a computer screen, Mark’s book The Primal Blueprint is a great place to get started on not only what to eat, but why you should be eating it.

It’s educational, funny, real-world applicable, and teaches you how to primalize( just made that up) the rest of your life too.

# 3) Robb Wolf– Another great resource, and a guy I’ve already referenced in this article multiple times. Check out his site for a comprehensive FAQ on all things Paleo, a shopping list pdf( right-click and save ), and plenty of humor.

The Paleo Solution– This article would have been finished 3 hours earlier, but before I wrote it, I read ALL of Robb’s new volume. It severely had me laughing out loud at certain points- not bad for a volume on diet!

This book is a little less forgiving than Mark’s book above, but it’s still a great read.

# 4) Loren Cordain– Loren is considered the leading expert on the Paleo Diet- Robb is actually one of his students/ adherents/ Padawans.

Dr. Cordain is probably the foremost authority on this type of eating, which is why I truly enjoyed reading both of his volumes.

MORE RECIPE Resource :P TAGEND

Ready or Not! 150 Make Now Recipes– The newer volume from Michelle Tam of Nom Nom Paleo. It’s super fun. Plus she’s wearing a Nerd FItness t-shirt in some of her photos in the book, so I might be sliiiightly biased Mark’s Daily Apple– Although he sells the cookbook on Amazon, Mark also lists over 100 free primal recipes on his site. Pick something on the listing, run buy the ingredients, and follow the instructions! So easy even a caveman can do it. Everyday Paleo– Great paintings, easy to follow recipes, and pretty interesting combinations. Click on FOOD in the Nav bar, and the meals are broken down into breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

If you’re curious about The Paleo Diet’s recent popularity and thus it’s criticisms, we’ve written two other pieces on Nerd Fitness that might be of interest :P TAGEND

” The Paleo Diet Debunked ??” where I address a few of the more recent criticisms that have popped up.

” In Defense of a Paleo-Ish Diet” where I cover how to live a largely Paleo lifestyle but still enjoy the modern benefits of society.

Who Should and Who Shouldn’t Do the Paleo Diet?

I’m a fan of the Paleo Diet for the RIGHT person:

I love mental models that help us make sense of the world, and I think for SOME people, the Paleo Diet has certainly help them cut down on overeating.

I personally do NOT follow a Paleo Diet, but I do have rules that I follow.

Do whatever attains you happy and fits in your schedule. I like this kind of stress-free eating.

Regardless of whether or not grains should be vilified, I love this diet because I know it WORKS. I know people that have lost incredible amounts of weight and altered their lives within a matter of months.

People like Staci :P TAGEND

Regardless of how you feel about grains, we can all agree that eating more natural foods and less processed foods is better for you.

YOU SHOULD DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

You struggle with portion control( meaning you can’t eat only one cookie, or you tend to keep feeing even when you’re full ). You can stick with the changes you’re making permanently! Remember, temporary alters make temporary outcomes. You don’t mind eliminating some of your favorite foods entirely.

YOU SHOULD NOT DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

The notion of giving up non-paleo foods attains you want to cry. You don’t mind learning about calories and want to track your food. Another diet sounds like a better fit for you!

Consider some of these other options instead:

The Mediterranean Diet which still includes portions of things like pasta or bread( note: I said PORTIONS , not platefuls )! Our guide on healthy eating and slowly adjust your nutrition- which would be my recommendation. My paleo-ish dietary philosophy that keeps me healthy and happy.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to stimulate permanent adjustments to your nutrition.

If you don’t see yourself being able to permanently follow a Paleo Diet, I would advise a more’ wade in from the shallow end‘ approach to dietary change!

How to Do the Paleo Diet Safely

Maybe you’re ready to try out this Paleo lifestyle, but you can’t commit fully. There are certain foods you refuse to give up, or you can’t afford to buy grass-fed beef at the moment.

That’s okay!

If you can even make a few small changes here and there( cut out liquid calories, switch out your rice for steamed vegetables, cut back on bread, etc .) you’ll start to see some changes.

Remember, 20% healthier is better than 0% healthier- as you get more comfortable with the changes you can increase that percentage.

After all, I know how tough it is to stay loyal to a strict diet, especially without a plan to follow. It’s why we created free resources that can help you reach your goals faster without you also going crazy.

Get rid of the temptation: if you’re gonna go at this thing with a full head of steam, remove all the junk food from your house.

It’s going to take a few weeks for your body to adjust to burning fat instead of glucose, and you might want to eat poorly here and there. If there’s no food in your house to tempt you, it will be much easier to stay on target.

Now, it’s your turn.

Have you tried the Paleo Diet yet? What was your experience like? Have a criticism of the diet that I didn’t cover before? Do you have a favorite paleo resource?

Remember, one of the major Rules of the Rebellion is to question everything!

I hope this article gives you some food for thought( terrible pun, I know ), and gives you permission to question conventional wisdom and start addressing the issues in your diet!

In addition to this Beginner Paleo Guide, I hope you consider checking our 1-on-1 Coaching Program as well.

We have designed this program from the ground up to help people like you change their lives and fix their nutrition in a way that doesn’t suck.

Now, go forth. And feed like a caveman.

-Steve

PS: I’ll leave you with a mention of the Nerd Fitness Academy– it essentially gamifies your experience in transitioning into a Paleo lifestyle and diet, and provides you with specific instruction, meal plans, workouts, and a supportive community.

###

photo sources: cavemen elephant hunt, caveman cooking over fire, cavemen hunt paleo bear, milk truck logo, darth vader vendor, storm trooper tomato, lego cook, chef and lego pig, lego explorer, lego muffin, lego bread and carbs, frozen caveman grok lego, lego clock, lego caveman forging for food, caveman with wheel, darth vader and ostrich lego, easing into water lego, lego man with pasta

Footnotes( returns to text)

Adult Obesity Prevalence Map CDC.gov

What if its all Been a Big Fat Lie ? Take a look at this time magazine article on cancer patients who switched to a zero-sugar diet and watched positive results. You can read our full guide on Gluten check out the Inuit Paradox for a great read on societies that exist without almost any carbohydrates If you want to nerd out about this stuff, go wild with this study This is the most well-researched critique I’ve detect of the China Study: Denise Menger- China Study- Fact or Fallacy

Read more: nerdfitness.com

[currenthealtheventsblog-blog]

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

New Post has been published on https://currenthealthevents.net/awesome/paleo-diet-beginner-guide-7-things-you-should-know-before-eating-like-a-caveman/

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

So you wanna learn about the Paleo Diet, aka” the Caveman Diet ,” eh?

This is one of the most popular diets on the planet right now( up there with the Keto Diet ), and I bet you have questions.

Well I got answers, sucka!

And lots of LEGO photos.

In this massive guide, I’m going to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the Paleolithic Diet( click each link to go right to that segment ):

What is the Paleo Diet and how does it run ? Will I lose weight on the Paleo Diet ? What can I eat on the Paleo Diet ? What foods CAN’T I eat on the Paleo Diet ? Can I feed grains on the Paleo Diet ? Can I eat dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I feed cheese on the Paleo Diet ? Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of foods on the Paleo Diet What does a typical day look like on the Paleo Diet ? Is the Paleo Diet dangerous ? Paleo Recipes& Paleo Resource . Who shouldn’t do the Paleo Diet ? How to do the Paleo Diet safely .

Now, this guide is SUPER long, we are therefore took the liberty of converting it into a nicely designed guide for easy intake( not literal intake, unless you print it on bacon ).

Grab your Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet free when you sign up in the box below: Get the FREE eBook! The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Paleo!

Discover if Paleo is for you

The one simple trick to know if your food is Paleo-friendly

Easy Paleo recipes for beginners to get you started

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

As the great Mr. Flintstone once said, “Yabadabadooooo!”

What is the Paleo Diet and How does it Work?

Oh lord, another “diet.”

I know, it sounds like a fad/ marketing gambit, but The Paleo Diet isn’t really a “diet,” and it’s actually quite logical when you think about it.

It’s also the most time-tested diet ever.

Here’s the ENTIRE diet in a nutshell :P TAGEND

” If a cave person didn’t eat it, neither should you .”

As the hypothesi goes, tens of thousands of years ago, before Nike, Cap’n Crunch, and Healthy Choice dinners, our ancient ancestors prospered as hunter-gatherers.

Although it’s been a really long time, our genetics haven’t altered that much since then.

And yet…these days we’re overweight, out of shape, stressed out, unhappy, sleep deprived and dying from far too many preventable cancers due to lifestyle choices.

So what the hell happened?

Agriculture!

And then delivery and Netflix.

A few thousand years ago, humans discovered farming, the agricultural revolution took off, and we advanced from hunter-gatherers to farmers.

We settled down, formed societies, and the human race progressed to what we are today. Which is obviously great for a number of reasons :P TAGEND

Not getting eaten by wild animals Electricity Automobiles Nintendo

The problem is that our bodies never adjusted properly to eating all the grains and sugar that we’re now consuming.

As paleo guru Robb Wolf sets it, should be considered a 100 -yard football field :P TAGEND

The first 99.5 yards are how long Homo-Sapiens spent as hunter-gatherers. As they became REALLY good at hunting and collecting our bodies adapted to that lifestyle over thousands of years.

That last half-yard represents our species after the agricultural revolution, where our diet has changed( but our genetics haven’t ).

So, instead of loading up on meat, vegetables and seasonal fruits, we’ve become a species “dependent” upon grains- bread, pasta, rice, corn, and so on.

66% of us are overweight, 33% are considered obese, and those numbers are only getting worse.[ 1 ]

Clearly something’s not right, and we need to fix it.

The Paleo Diet is an effort to go back to our ancestral roots.

To start eating how we’re biologically designed to eat, allowing us to tap into our genetic potential and start living healthier immediately.

To recap the rules of the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Only eat foods a caveman would feed See Rule# 1

Note that it doesn’t mention calorie counting or meal timing or macro tracking. That’s part of the popularity of this diet: eat paleo approved foods when you’re hungry, and that’s it.

Will I Lose Weight on the Paleo Diet?

This is the question we get above all else :P TAGEND

” Will the Paleo Diet assistance me lose weight ?”

Probably. If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

It’s helped many people attain jaw-dropping transformations, including my friend Saint,( whose story you can read here ):

Or Staci from Team NF, our leading female trainer in our 1-on-1 Coaching Program ):

The Paleo Diet will work for you, if you do it right.

You need to have the right mindset, you need to focus on the right foods, and you need to structure your environment so that you’re not tempted to backslide and abandon the Paleo Diet after a few days.

However, it has nothing to do with what Fred Flintstone ate or didn’t eat.

It comes down to science and thermodynamics.

As I point out in our article on How to Lose Weight: What’s the Perfect Diet( For me ?), if you want to lose weight :P TAGEND

Eat fewer calories than you burn every day. Want to also be healthy? Eat mostly real food.

Want to KEEP the weight off?

Add# 3: Do those two things consistently for a decade.

Here’s WHY you’ll lose weight on the Paleo Diet:

You’re merely feeing meat, fish, veggies, fruits, and nuts. These are foods that are full of nutrients, will make you feel full, but don’t have nearly as many calories as junk food. You are wholly eliminating calorie-dense, often nutritionally deficient, unhealthy foods. This means no grains( pasta, bread, rice ), no dairy , no beans. It also means no soda , no candy , no sugar.

And yup. When you merely eat real food and avoided all unhealthy food, you’re more likely than not going to run a caloric deficit- and thus lose weight.

Let me share a really obvious example.

200 calories of broccoli gets you enough to fill up an entire plate :P TAGEND

Or … 200 calories will get you exactly 1/2 a Snickers bar :P TAGEND

Look at that: nobody can eat that much broccoli, and nobody only eats half a candy bar!

My point is this: by eating Paleo-approved foods, you’re more likely than not to eat fewer calories than you did in the past automatically, which can lead to weight loss.

I dig into this in even greater detail in” Why can’t I lose weight ?” but it all comes down to” calories in, calories out .”

So YES, the Paleo Diet MIGHT help you lose weight.

You merely need to eat fewer calories than you burn every day( Here’s how to calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure ). And that is easier when you are eliminating foods that people tend to overeat :P TAGEND

Candy Soda Pasta Bread Dairy

But that’s all about what we’re eliminating. What are we maintaining !?

what Can I eat on The Paleo diet?

In order to follow the Paleo Diet Lifestyle, here are the foods that are Paleo endorse :P TAGEND

Meat*- steak, ham, pork, bison, boar. Organ- liver, kidneys, heart. Marrow- find a theme here? Eat ALL parts of the animal! Fowl- chicken, duck, hen, turkey…things with wings that( try to) fly. Fish- cod, tuna, salmon, and so on. Eggs- Look for omega-3 enriched cage-free eggs. Vegetable- spinach, broccoli, kale, carrots, peppers, zucchini, onions, etc. Petroleum- minimally processed, derived from plants: olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil. Fats: ghee, lard, or other animal fats. Fruit- apples, pears, bananas, grapes, strawberries. Nuts- almonds, walnuts, cashews, and their respective butters( almond butter is so good !) Tubers- Sweet potatoes and yams.

* If you can, aim for grass-fed beef and organic fruits and vegetables. But don’t go break the bank with your food buys. Simply do the best you can.

As the Paleo Diet explains: Pick any of the foods from that list and feed as much as you want of them.

You might have noticed that a lot of the foods above are loaded with fat. And depending on what your mom told you growing up, you might believe fat is the devil.

So let me address that right away…

Do Eating Fat Make You Fat?

If you’re trim back on carbs, that means you’ll need to fill the void in your diet with the most controversial macronutrient :P TAGEND

Fat!

It’s gotten a bad rap over the past number of decades, so companies have been doing everything possible to stimulate everything low fat and “healthy! ”( while adding all sorts of preservatives, chemicals, and sugar ).

Yup…cut out the fat, increase the carbs….and seem where THAT has gotten us.

Why has fat been vilified? Rather than get into the politics of it myself, I’ll let Gary Taubes, writer of the incredibly thorough and well-researched Good Calories, Bad Calories take over.

As he discusses in an article he wrote for the New York Times a decade ago: [ 2 ]

These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of hour.

In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980′ s, and that this was coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma.( Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period .)

They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and real life to be dismal failures, and that on top of it all, the percentage of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades.

Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as expected to be completed.” That is very disconcerting ,” Willett says.” It suggests that something else bad is happening .”

” Low fat” foods were created to follow conventional wisdom that fat attain you fat( which as stated in the above article doesn’t stand up to scrutiny ).

When a company makes a low fat food, they remove the fat and have to replace the flavor with something.

That “something” is usually sugar( and often more calories ).

Crap.

So, according to Taubes and Paleo folks, fat has been vilified and the real focus should have been on sugar and carbs all along.

Because healthy fats are valuable additions to our diet.

Here are some examples of Paleo-Approved Healthy Fats :P TAGEND

Avocados Almond( and almond butter) Fatty cuts of meat Walnuts Coconut oil Olive petroleum

In the Paleo Diet, fat builds up a large portion of one’s diet.

If you’re worried about consuming fat and how it will affect your cholesterol, read our Full Guide to Cholesterol

WhAT Foods Can���t I eat On the Paleo Diet?

If you are looking to strictly follow the Paleo Diet, then you can’t eat foods that did not exist back in” Caveman period .”

Why?

Because- as advocates of the diet point out- cavemen couldn’t eat those foods because they didn’t exist. There was no way to create cereal and candy – you could only eat what you determined or hunted.

So, that’s what the Paleo Diet advocates as the reason for avoiding these foods. And it serves as a good mental model to check with yourself: “Could a caveman have feed this dinner? ”

And when you start to answer this question, you identify the foods that you’re not allowed to eat on the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Grains like pasta, cereal bread, and rice Dairy like milk and cheese Candy, cookies, ice cream, and other processed foods

The Paleo Diet also almost entirely eliminates sugar outside of fruit. No candy. No soda. No powdered donuts. Yup, even the mini white ones from the grocery store where you can eat like 100 of them( accidentally, of course ).

Many studies have shown that an incredible number of diseases and lifestyle issues can be reversed by cutting out sugar and processed foods.[ 3 ]

But I understand grains and dairy are a bit more complex.

Let me explain :P TAGEND Can I Eat Grains on the Paleo Diet?

Unfortunately , nope.

The Caveman reason why: Grain require some amount of processing, and thus Cavemen would not have eaten them.

The science and psychological reason why: we have a tendency to overeat grains and the other ” no no” foods on the Paleo Diet. They are calorically dense, nutrient deficient, and they can wreak havoc on some people’s blood sugar levels.

This leads to a sugar hurry-up followed by a accident, which can lead to more emotional or hungry overeating…and the process starts again.

Rather than me explain that part with thousands of words, just watch this three-minute video-” Why You Got Fat :”

Let’s get into some more reasons Paleo proponents suggest avoiding grains: most contain gluten and lectins.

What are they and what’s wrong with them? I’m so glad you asked :P TAGEND

Gluten is a protein found in things like rye, wheat, and barley. It’s now being said that much of our population may be gluten-intolerant( hence all the new “gluten-free! ” items popping up everywhere ). Over hour, those who are gluten intolerant can develop a dismal array of medical conditions from consuming gluten: dermatitis, joint ache, reproductive problems, acid reflux, and more.[ 4 ] Lectins are natural toxins that exist in grains to defend against consumption! Yup. Grains have evolved to keep themselves from being eaten by us. These lectins are not a fan of our gastrointestinal tract, and they prevent the tract from repairing itself from normal wear and tear. This can cause all kinds of damage.

Long story short: many people cannot process grains properly, and they are usually the food that causes people to eat too many calories. So by eliminating grains from your diet, you’re more likely than not going to eat fewer calories without counting calories.

That’s a Paleo win!

Do I Need to Avoid Carbs on the Paleo Diet?

Not inevitably.

That depends on your goals and your body – you are a special snowflake!

Some people function well on a high fat, low carb diet.

Others function better on a high carb, low fat diet.

Personally, I function better on a higher carb, lower fat diet( which is how I lost 22 pounds in 6 months ).

I will say the Paleo Diet is USUALLY a Low Carb diet, and large quantities of carbs are not required for somebody to be healthy regular diet.[ 5 ].

After all, carbs aren’t evil- they’re just…carbs.

Here is the logic and psychology behind why the Paleo Diet is low carb :P TAGEND

On a typical Western diet, we devour plenty o’ carbs, and our bodies convert those carbs to a sugar called “glucose.” This is our body’s preferred method of fueling itself.

In the absence of carbs to create glucose to fuel our bodies, we have to do a few other things instead :P TAGEND

Transform stored fat into glycerol and fatty acids( this process is called lipolysis ). Burn fatty acids for energy or transform the fatty acids into glucose for energy( this is called gluconeogenesis) In the absence of glucose( through fasting or following a Keto Diet ), your body can create ketones for ga( called “ketogenesis” ).

We’re going to focus on the forms of weight loss NOT related to ” ketogenesis .” Unless you are avoiding all carbohydrates while going Paleo, or you are doing long fasts, you most likely won’t be in ketosis while going Paleo.

We do cover Paleo vs Keto: Which is Better if you’re deciding between the two.

Back to weight loss and Paleo: when you cut back on carbs, and thus most likely Also cut back on total calories ingested, you are creating a caloric deficit in your body.

And eat a consistent deficit over a long enough time period, BOOM caveman weight loss.

So, fewer carbs= less glucose in your system, less sugar accidents, less “hangry” moments and smaller opportunity of overeating= fewer calories eaten on average.

If you’re worried about adherence to the diet, I understand – it’s the toughest part of Paleo- sticking with it!

Knowing what to eat is part of it, but following this fairly restrictive lifestyle in a modern surrounding surrounded by cookies and candy and bagels and pasta is really difficult!

If this whole” Paleo, Carbs, and Weight Loss” thing is emphasizing you out, you’re not alone!

In fact, people like you are the reason we created our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program!

We work with busy people like you to structure a complete life overhaul: handcrafted workout routines, accountability, mindset changes, and nutritional strategies.

Can I feed Dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I eat Cheese On the Paleo Diet?

This also depends. Strict Paleo folks tend to stay away from it- a portion of the world is lactose intolerant, and those that aren’t usually have at least some type of an aversion to it.

Why? Because hunter-gatherers didn’t lug cows around with them while traveling- milk was ingested as a newborn through breast milk from their mom, and that was it.

So as Paleo-stans will tell ya, our bodies weren’t designed for massive dairy consumption.

There is evidence that some adaptation to dairy has taken place throughout the years, specifically with people with pedigree in herding cultures, but this is not the majority of the population.[ 6 ]

Paleo purists will avoid dairy like the beset, while other paleo-ish people have found that eating dairy in its various kinds work for their genetics, aims, and lifestyle.

“What about Cheese? Can I feed cheese on the Paleo Diet? ”

You do you, boo. But if you’re going Strict Paleo, then regrettably cheese is OUT too.

If you’re just looking to lose some weight while following a “mostly Paleo” lifestyle, then adding some high quality cheese into some of your meals can be okay.

Some cheese will tend to have lower sums of lactose or casein- the parts of dairy that can cause digestion challenges.

So, if you’re not sure your body is processing dairy properly, remove dairy from your diet and only introduce it back in when you’re ready to see how your body responds.

If you’re not losing weight while eating a” Paleo+ Dairy” Diet, you’re still feeing too many calories.

Consider cutting out dairy and see how your body responds.

Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of Foods on the Paleo Diet

Because I like you as a person, I’ve made a printable Paleo Diet Shopping List PDF you can bring with you to the grocery store to help you decide what to buy and what to avoid.

Simply right click on the image below and save as :P TAGEND

Feel free to publish this out and bring it with you to the grocery store. If you happen to run into somebody else who has ALSO printed out this sheet, feel free to high five each other while singing Baltimora!

What is a Typical Day Like on the Paleo Diet?

Here is an example of a typical day on “The Paleo Diet” :P TAGEND

Breakfast: Omelet with spinach with fresh fruit. Lunch: Grilled chicken, kale, and avocado salad with vinegar and olive oil. Snack: Apple slice and almond butter. Dinner: Steak with asparagus and sweet potato fries. Dessert: Strawberries and a piece of 85% darknes chocolate.

That doesn’t audio so bad, right?

Make sure you check out our Paleo Diet Recipes and Resources section too for more alternatives.

Start with a good protein source with each meal( eggs, steak, chicken, fish, pork) and then add a vegetable or fruit.

That’s it.

If you feel hungry constantly, understand that changing up a diet can cause a body a few weeks of adjustment.

Remember, your body is learning to operate on both fewer calories AND fewer carbs- depending on how low carb you go this could be a DRAMATIC change.

And this is often referred to as “carb flu, ” and it can be miserable! Your body might take multiple weeks to adjust to these new habits.

Going from a processed, high sodium diet to a paleo diet you will very often end up eating too little sodium, which is an essential nutrient.

So if you’re feeling tired all the time, try adding some salt to your food or consider an electrolyte supplement- this is what we recommend with our Keto readers too.

Is the Paleo Diet Dangerous?

The dismissive criticisms of the Paleo Diet generally fall into one of three categories :P TAGEND

Cavemen had short lifespans. So there. A recent article said that cavemen eat grains. So there. Eating that much meat is unhealthy. So there.

As I said at the beginning of this article, it doesn’t matter what cavemen or cavewomen ACTUALLY ate.

The reason this diet runs has nothing to do with what our bodies are designed to eat or what cavemen ate 1,000 s of years ago.

The Paleo Diet CAN help you lose weight because it gets you to cut out junk food, focus on eating real food, and gives you a framework to evaluate quickly every food selection :P TAGEND

” Did a caveman eat this? Yes or no .”

That’s it!

By following this ONE rules, you’re likely to eat fewer calories than you used to, and thus you’re likely to end up healthier than before.

I personally don’t follow a Paleo Diet, but I do appreciate the fact that it’s easy to comprehend and gets people to take a more active approach in their food!

So, disregarding the fear mongering, dogma, and anthropological criticisms of what cavemen actually feed, what are the ACTUAL criticisms of the Paleo Diet?

# 1)” Why is the Paleo Diet expensive ?”

Admittedly, while I recommend feeing organic fruits and veggies, free-range chicken, and grass-fed beef whenever possible, these products can be more expensive in conventional stores due to the processes needed to get them there.

However, farmers’ marketplaces often have well-priced meats, eggs, fruit, and veggies that are locally grown and unbelievably healthy.

Even if you’re spending a little more money than before, when you factor in your overall health, spending a few extra bucks on healthier food now is a wiser investment than thousands later on costly medical expenses.

Also, if you’re really short on money, eating the non-organic or grain-fed version of a meat, vegetable, or eggs is still better than feeing bread, pasta, fast food, and the like.

Most people simply compare the cost of a paleo dinner with ramen noodles or pasta and bread and determine Paleo is prohibitively expensive.

Sure, it’s more expensive than those foods, but if you are smart with your fund you can eat a much healthier snack and do really pretty inexpensively. Check out this guide on” How to Eat Healthy Without Breaking the Bank” for some tips and tricks.

( This doesn’t even factor in the whole” if you eat inexpensive unhealthy food now, you’ll pay thousands in medical bills and hospital visits and drugs later” argument which is valid too ).

# 2)” But cavemen had short lifespans! Of course they don’t have the diseases we do. We live way longer now .”

I agree with you here, but only because you don’t have to deal with the dangers of living back then. Again we don’t really care to live like cave people!

This is SIMPLY a construct that can help many construction more informed food choices.

# 3)” Plenty of societies around the world consume grains and aren’t fat and unhealthy like us .”

Awesome- it seems like those people have found a solution that works for them. Have you read our big ass guidebook to eating a Plant-Based Diet?

The China Study is frequently cited when blaming the Paleo Diet- are concentrated on a vegetarian diet and ingesting rice is healthier than the Paleo Diet. I respectfully disagree with the conclusions drawn from that volume but that’s awesome if you want to go plant-based! [ 7 ] I’ll leave you to stimulate your own conclusions based on your own self-experimentation.

You’re here to learn about the Paleo Diet though, so let’s keep the focus there.

# 4)” But this is just a meat diet, and eating all meat is bad !”

First of all, consider your sources and do your search before jumping to the conclusions.

Next, this is not an all meat diet like the Carnivore Diet or uber-low carb diets like Keto or Atkins. The biggest component of the Paleo Diet?

Vegetables!

Every meal in a true Paleo diet has a moderate amount of healthy( properly raised chicken, grass-fed beef, hormone free, etc .) meat combined with nutritious veggies or a moderate quantity of fruit.

# 5)” The Paleo Diet is too restrictive and I can’t live like this .”

This is the most valid criticism I personally have of the diet, as the best diet plan is the one you actually stick with and be adhered to on! The objective shouldn’t be to go” full paleo” for a few weeks only going to go to how you were eating before.

Instead, the goal here should be to rethink your relationship with food and develop a strategy that you can live with permanently.

There’s nothing worse than going on diets and gaining and losing the same 20 pounds over and over. The Paleo Diet, like other diets, WORKS ONLY IF YOU STICK WITH IT PERMANENTLY!

This makes sense after all: make temporary alters, get temporary results, right?

# 6)” Steve, I detest veggies. How do you attain vegetables taste better? HALP .”

I got you. Heres how to start liking vegetables and how to build veggies taste better.

We know this all too well, and we have helped thousands of people slowwwwly transition their diet over a long period of time to make change less scary, more permanent, and thus construct the weight loss permanent too!

If you’re overwhelmed or scared of changing too much, or maybe you’re just sick of dieting and want to find a solution that works for your busy lifestyle and situation, schedule a bellow with us to gain a better understanding of our 1-on-1 coaching program :P TAGEND

Paleo Recipes and Paleo Resource

Here’s our full list of Nerd Fitness Paleo/ Healthy recipes, and here are my three favorites :P TAGEND

10 Minutes of Prep, 10 Easy Meals Paleo spaghetti: freaking delicious, I promise How to Make Mini Paleo Pizzas .

I’ve also compiled a listing of my favorite sites and recipe volumes around the internet that can help you get started :P TAGEND

# 1) Nom Nom Paleo -~ ATAGEND Michelle Tam and her husband Henry are amazing people, and their Paleo Blog is absolutely phenomenal. Great photos. Well written. Organized intelligently.

Their “Nom Nom Paleo” cookbook is a fun resource too, and a great place to get started with cooking for your Paleo lifestyle. Oh, what’s that? You have children and a spouse and you’re all trying to eat healthier too? This volume is perfect for that as well!

# 2) Mark’s Daily Apple– Easily the most comprehensive resource on the internet for the Paleo Diet- Mark writes an article every weekday about everything Paleo, and it usually blows me away. Some of the posts can get overwhelming, so I suggest starting with his Primal Blueprint 101.

The Primal Blueprint– If you want to read about this stuff in a book rather than on a computer screen, Mark’s book The Primal Blueprint is a great place to get started on not only what to eat, but why you should be eating it.

It’s educational, funny, real-world applicable, and teaches you how to primalize( just made that up) the rest of your life too.

# 3) Robb Wolf– Another great resource, and a guy I’ve already referenced in this article multiple times. Check out his site for a comprehensive FAQ on all things Paleo, a shopping list pdf( right-click and save ), and plenty of humor.

The Paleo Solution– This article would have been finished 3 hours earlier, but before I wrote it, I read ALL of Robb’s new book. It severely had me laughing out loud at certain points- not bad for a book on diet!

This book is a little less forgiving than Mark’s book above, but it’s still a great read.

# 4) Loren Cordain– Loren is considered the leading expert on the Paleo Diet- Robb is actually one of his students/ disciples/ Padawans.

Dr. Cordain is probably the foremost authority on this type of eating, which is why I actually enjoyed reading both of his books.

MORE RECIPE RESOURCES :P TAGEND

Ready or Not! 150 Make Now Recipes– The newer volume from Michelle Tam of Nom Nom Paleo. It’s super fun. Plus she’s wearing a Nerd FItness t-shirt in some of her photos in the book, so I might be sliiiightly biased Mark’s Daily Apple– Although he sells the cookbook on Amazon, Mark also lists over 100 free primal recipes on his site. Pick something on the listing, go buy the ingredients, and follow the instructions! So easy even a caveman can do it. Everyday Paleo– Great scenes, easy to follow recipes, and pretty interesting combinations. Click on FOOD in the Nav bar, and the meals are broken down into breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

If you’re curious about The Paleo Diet’s recent popularity and thus it’s criticisms, we’ve written two other pieces on Nerd Fitness that might be of interest :P TAGEND

” The Paleo Diet Debunked ??” where I address a few of the more recent criticisms that have popped up.

” In Defense of a Paleo-Ish Diet” where I encompass how to live a mostly Paleo lifestyle but still enjoy the modern benefits of society.

Who Should and Who Shouldn’t Do the Paleo Diet?

I’m a fan of the Paleo Diet for the RIGHT person:

I love mental models that help us make sense of the world, and I guess for SOME people, the Paleo Diet will really help them cut down on overeating.

I personally do NOT follow a Paleo Diet, but I do have rules that I follow.

Do whatever stimulates you happy and accommodates in your schedule. I like this kind of stress-free eating.

Regardless of whether or not grains should be vilified, I love this diet because I know it WORKS. I know people that have lost incredible sums of weight and changed their lives within a matter of months.

People like Staci :P TAGEND

Regardless of how you feel about grains, we can all agree that eating more natural foods and less processed foods is better for you.

YOU SHOULD DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

You struggle with portion control( entailing you can’t eat only one cookie, or you tend to keep eating even when you’re full ). You can stick with the changes you’re making permanently! Remember, temporary changes make temporary results. You don’t mind eliminating some of your favorite foods wholly.

YOU SHOULD NOT DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

The idea of giving up non-paleo foods induces you want to cry. You don’t mind learning about calories and want to track your food. Another diet sounds like a better fit for you!

Consider some of these other options instead:

The Mediterranean Diet which still includes portions of things like pasta or bread( note: I said Portions , not platefuls )! Our guide on healthy eating and slowly adjust your nutrition- which would be my recommendation. My paleo-ish dietary philosophy that holds me healthy and happy.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to stimulate permanent adjustments to your nutrition.

If you don’t see yourself being able to permanently follow a Paleo Diet, I would advise a more’ wade in from the shallow aim‘ approach to dietary change!

How to Do the Paleo Diet Safely

Maybe you’re ready to try out this Paleo lifestyle, but you can’t commit fully. There are certain foods you refuse to give up, or you can’t afford to buy grass-fed beef at the moment.

That’s okay!

If you can even make a few small changes here there are still( cut out liquid calories, switch out your rice for steamed veggies, cut back on bread, etc .) you’ll start to see some changes.

Remember, 20% healthier is better than 0% healthier- as you get more comfortable with the changes you can increase that percentage.

After all, I know how tough it is to stay loyal to a strict diet, especially without a plan to follow. It’s why we created free resources that can help you reach your goals faster without you also going crazy.

Get rid of the temptation: if you’re gonna go at this thing with a full head of steam, remove all the junk food from your house.

It’s going to take a few weeks for your body to adjust to burning fat instead of glucose, and you might want to eat poorly here there are still. If there’s no food in your house to tempt you, it will be much easier to stay on target.

Now, it’s your turn.

Have you tried the Paleo Diet yet? What was your experience like? Have a criticism of the diet that I didn’t cover before? Do you have a favorite paleo resource?

Remember, one of the major Rules of the Rebellion is to question everything!

I hope this article gives you some food for thought( terrible pun, I know ), and gives you permission to question conventional wisdom and start addressing the issues in your diet!

In addition to this Beginner Paleo Guide, I hope you consider checking our 1-on-1 Coaching Program as well.

We have designed this program from the ground up to help people like you change their lives and fix their nutrition in a way that doesn’t suck.

Now, go forth. And feed like a caveman.

-Steve

PS: I’ll leave you with a mention of the Nerd Fitness Academy– it essentially gamifies your experience in transitioning into a Paleo lifestyle and diet, and provides you with specific instruction, snack plans, workouts, and a supportive community.

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photo sources: cavemen elephant hunt, caveman cooking over fire, cavemen hunt paleo bear, milk truck logo, darth vader vendor, storm trooper tomato, lego cook, chef and lego pig, lego explorer, lego muffin, lego bread and carbs, frozen caveman grok lego, lego clock, lego caveman forge for food, caveman with wheel, darth vader and ostrich lego, easing into water lego, lego man with pasta

Footnote( returns to text)

Adult Obesity Prevalence Map CDC.gov

What if its all Been a Big Fat Lie ? Take a look at this time magazine article on cancer patients who switched to a zero-sugar diet and assured positive results. You can read our full guide on Gluten check out the Inuit Paradox for a great read on societies that exist without almost any carbohydrates If you want to nerd out about this stuff, go wild with this study This is the most well-researched criticism I’ve see of the China Study: Denise Menger- China Study- Fact or Fallacy

Read more: nerdfitness.com

[josephkitchen0]

A Free Choice Salt Lick is Vital for Livestock Health

Don’t laugh, I’m sure I’m not the only farm kid who’s done this. When I was a girl I remember licking the salt lick block in the barnyard. I told you not to laugh! I never considered germs or disease, who did back then?

Papa told me not to do it, but he wasn’t upset by it. Much of what we did and survived as kids is considered taboo today. In some ways, that’s sad.

If you have livestock on your homestead, then I’m sure you’re aware of the need they all have for salt and minerals. The lack of it affects the life of the animal and the products we receive from them. From goat milk benefits to meat supply, everything is affected. The dilemma seems to be over whether the best way to provide these is a salt lick block or loose minerals.

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Need for Salt

It seems farmers have always known about the need animals have for salt, just like we do. For thousands of years, salt has been a trade good for those in the livestock community. Ancient Greeks, Asians, and Africans have records of domesticated and wild animals traveling to salt deposits to meet their need for this necessary element. It plays a vital role in electrolyte balance.

We offer apple cider vinegar to our livestock at any sign of stress, illness and at the change of seasons. We do this for many reasons, one of them being to help maintain electrolyte balance. Sodium and chloride, which are in salt, play major functions in our bodies as well as theirs. From kidney function to muscle functioning, including the heart, they’re vital to life.

The requirements vary from animal to animal. Cattle eating a winter ration of hay or silage will require more than when they’re on grain and fresh grass. Sheep require more salt than most all other livestock. Lactating animals and those preparing for breeding season have different needs as well.

It’s not enough to use feed which has these elements in it because individual animals have individual needs. This makes a free choice salt lick a good husbandry choice.

What Happens When Livestock Animals Don’t Get Salt?

When livestock aren’t given access to salt and minerals either in a salt lick block or loose mineral supplement, there are dangerous risks to them. If we were to deny our bodies this necessary element we would suffer as well. It’s important to know the signs of a deficiency in your animals.

Urine output is decreased as the animal’s body attempts to conserve trace elements like sodium and chloride.

A loss of appetite leads to weight loss.

The ability to utilize nutrition from feed decreases which means it takes more feed to meet nutritional needs if the animal is still eating.

They develop a craving for salt. You may even see them eating or licking weird things like wood (even your barn), dirt, rocks, and places where they or other animals have urinated. This is called pica, an abnormal eating behavior. They’re simply trying to meet their need for sodium and other minerals.

A decrease in milk production.

The fermentation process in the rumen doesn’t happen properly.

6 Factors Which Affect the Salt Needs of Livestock

While there are certainly more than six, these are the ones a homesteader is most likely to encounter. Commercial cattle farming is a whole different world from us homesteaders. We don’t encounter many of the problems they do, thankfully.

1) The animal’s diet. Depending on how much foraging your animal is allowed or its breed actually is able to do, diet is a major factor in the need for a salt lick. The less commercially prepared feed you provide the more necessary it is to provide free choice of some kind.

Commercially prepared foods vary greatly in their mineral and trace element contents. This makes choosing a balanced feed important and offering either a salt lick block or loose minerals accordingly.

2) Production level of milk. Milk has a lot of sodium and chloride in it, around 1150 ppm (parts per million) chloride and 630 ppm of sodium. If your dairy goats or cows are in high production mode, the need for salt is high.

3) The environment. Humidity and temperature play a significant role in the sodium, chloride, potassium, magnesium, and other trace element needs of your livestock. When we moved to the panhandle of Idaho, our friends told us to take extra magnesium for a while until our bodies adjusted. Until I had my first cramps, I didn’t take them seriously.

The climate and location play just as much a role for your livestock. Just like you, heat stresses your animals. Sodium is among the elements you and your animals sweat out so it has to be replaced by a free choice salt lick.

4) Stress. Yep, it’s a killer in humans and animals alike. This isn’t a real factor for most homesteaders, but there are always exceptions to every rule. There is also the reality of unforeseen things happening.

As homesteaders, we face it daily, don’t we? Disease, sudden changes in herd or flock members, predator attacks, poor housing, change of season, all these things can create stress in your livestock. Stress increases the need for salt and other minerals.

5) Genetics. There are basic genetic differences in all livestock, even within breeds. Those animals which are required to maintain high performance, such as milk cows or draft animals, require more calories, sodium, chloride…all those elements necessary for muscle, milk, and life maintenance.

6) The season. The new, green growth of spring is rich in potassium. This increase in potassium causes a loss in sodium in some livestock. You may see an increase in their craving for salt during this time of year compared to fall and especially winter.

University of Georgia Extension Specialist, Johnny Rossi, says sodium in salt is the only mineral for which he believes animals have nutritional wisdom. He says, “They seem to know when they need it and how much they need. Except for their drive to obtain water, there is no greater drive in them than to meet this need.”

He also advises, “If cattle have been without salt for a while, it may be wise to start them out again with plain white salt blocks. They can’t be consumed as quickly as loose salt, affording a measure of control over consumption. Neither will it allow them to over-consume minerals in a mixture. Once the animals’ heightened salt craving is satisfied, a block or loose mineral can be provided again.”

Just as important as providing salt and minerals to your livestock is the supply of clean drinking water. Your salt lick should be located close to a water supply. Salt toxicity is a risk when they aren’t provided with adequate water.

When Animals Don’t Get Enough Salt Factors that Affect Need For Salt Decreased Urine Output Diet Loss of Appetite Milk Production Weight Loss The Environment Develop Abnormal Eating Behaviors Stress Decrease in Milk Production Genetics Improper Fermentation in Rumen The Season

Form of Salt Supplied

Herein lies a controversy. Salt and mineral supplements come in two forms, a block the animal licks and loose granules. Both are considered free choice provision even though the loose minerals are often mixed in with the animals’ feed.

Some animals, such as the llama, don’t lick like cattle or horses so a loose mineral supplement would be better for them. Knowing your livestock and their eating behaviors will help you make the best financial and practical decision you can for you and the lives entrusted to your care.

The different colors among salt lick blocks and loose granules come from the differences in their compositions. White blocks, as you might guess, are strictly sodium chloride. Red blocks are salt with trace minerals and yellow is salt with sulfur.

Recommendations For Free Choice Salt Licks

1) You should always have a salt lick available for your livestock, block or loose – your choice.

2) Protect the salt lick from rain as exposure to water will dilute and deplete the trace minerals

3) Always make sure your livestock have access to clean drinking water close to the salt lick area. This seems a no-brainer, but it’s so important I couldn’t leave it unsaid.

4) Be familiar with the signs of salt and mineral deprivation in each of your animals. This will help you spot and meet any immediate need they may have.

I’ve included some resources for you below. As I’ve always said, “You’re responsible for the well-being of the lives entrusted to you. So don’t take one person’s word for it, not even mine. Do the research for yourself and make the best decision you can at the time.”

How do you provide a salt lick for your livestock? We’d value your experience and knowledge of the salt lick.

Save and Happy Journey,

Rhonda and The Pack

  Sources:

http://www.seaagri.com/docs/salt_and_trace_elements_in_animal_nutrition.pdf

http://www.feedingandfeedstuffs.info/articles/traditional_feeding/supplements/0208_saltanessentialelement.pdf

http://extension.psu.edu/animals/camelids/nutrition/which-one-loose-or-block-salt-feeding

A Free Choice Salt Lick is Vital for Livestock Health was originally posted by All About Chickens

[pullgram4-blog]

Grass-Fed Meat Wins, Grain-Fed Meat Loses

You've probably noticed that in nearly all of my recipes I write “grass-fed” next to whichever animal protein is in it. This is not just because, but rather due to lots and lots of research.

For many years I didn't think that it mattered what “style” of meat I purchased. Sure, everyone said that grass-fed was better, but was it really? It just seemed like they were trying to get me to spend more money. I chose to switch over anyway and see what the hype was all about (without doing much research either). Right away I noticed something; the color was different!

And after that first meal, I noticed that the flavor was different, the texture was different, and even the tenderness was different! Which made me even more curious. So I finally did some research, and I will never go back!

There are countless benefits to eating grass-fed meat over grain-fed, so many that it would take up way too much of your time for me to explain them all to you! So I went ahead and picked the points that stood out the most to me. Even so, there's still a LOT of information here.

In an attempt to help you better navigate through all of this information, I broke it down (by section) in this list for you. If you can, please take the time to read this in full. But if you can't read it all now, go ahead and skip to the section that best suits your needs and come back later for the rest!

Grass-Fed Meat and What Makes it Different

Why Grain Fed Meat Sucks

The Unethical Treatment of the Cows

High Doses of Antibiotics

The Reason Your Meat has Hormones in it

How Grass-Fed Differs from Grain-Fed

Top Tips to Cooking With Grass-Fed Meat

Where Can I Buy Grass-Fed Meat?

Top Five Favorite Grass-Fed Dishes

Grass-fed meat comes from cows who have been fed an entirely grass-based diet compared to the commercially funded and conventional grain fed method. A grain-fed diet is typically made from a base of corn and soy.

As we have learned over the years, both of these products (corn and soy) are ones that we want to steer clear from at all costs… especially soy! We don’t think twice about it when our food eats it, but we should!

You might be thinking, “I have eaten conventional meat products my entire life, how bad could they be?”.

Starting around the mid to late 1940’s, cows began being raised in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs for short. CAFOs are designed to optimize the production of our meat in an attempt to keep up with the increased consumption rates, but the methods they use to do this are less than desired.

What makes grain-fed meat so bad? Here are some of the most shocking methods

Using the grain-feed instead of grass-feeding the cows

Kept in tight/close quarters that are both unsanitary and inhumane

Given high doses of antibiotics in an attempt to defeat diseases

Given hormones to speed their growth in an unnatural manner

Let’s dive a little further into each of these…

Grain-Fed vs. Grass-Fed

The benefits of using a grain fed diet for the cows is decreased cost and increased production. Keep in mind that this benefits the CAFOs only; not the people consuming the product or the cows!

By using a grain fed diet, they get to feed the cows with genetically modified products. As if that wasn’t bad enough though, they often use fillers as well! These fillers have been discovered to include things as insane as gummy worms and marshmallows. Literally taking any measure necessary to decrease the cost of the feed, while still fattening the cows. Which is the second benefit to a CAFO for using a grain-based diet.

By getting a cow fatter, they will reach the mandatory minimum weight needed to be sent off for slaughter sooner. This allows the companies running the CAFOs to produce more meat at a quicker rate.

Tight and Unsanitary Living Quarters

As if fattening the cows wasn’t enough, they also herd them into the tightest quarters possible. Which goes to show how profit is more important than proper treatment.

By fitting as many cows into as small a space as they can, they are able to make more money and send them off to the slaughterhouse quicker.

From an ethics standpoint this is obviously wrong, but how does it affect your physical health?

High Doses of Antibiotics

Since the cows in CAFOs are kept in such tight and unsanitary quarters, they often get very sick.

In order to “save” the rest of the cows from getting sick, the sick ones are pumped with antibiotics in a lame attempt to combat the diseases that the CAFOs themselves created. By having a reactive approach, the disease will still spread, requiring the use of antibiotics for even more cows.

This means that the same cows that were pumped full of antibiotics to kill off a disease created by unsanitary living conditions are being butchered and sold in the same packaging.

Hormone Injections

While the cows are getting fatter from the grain fed diets, they are not necessarily growing faster. In order to combat this, the CAFOs pump cows with hormone injections to speed up their growth.

These hormones end up becoming part of the cow’s molecular structure and when all is said and done, we are eating their meat.

This stresses me out!

Just as you wouldn’t want to eat a corn or soy-based diet, imagine you lived in the same conditions as these cows. You would want out pretty quickly! But you can’t get out. So what happens? You get stressed! Well surprise, surprise… the same happens with cows!

When animals (humans included) are stressed, they have an increase in a stress hormone which is known as cortisol. This increased cortisol becomes part of the meat that we are consuming. And cortisol consumption has been linked to many avoidable health issues!

How does grass-fed differ?

Grass-fed, free-range cows are given the ability to roam and eat a natural diet. Essentially, they are allowed to live the way cows were meant to live. The result of this is properly raised cows that are stress-free.

With that, there is no need for hormones as they are being raised in a natural state, growing at their normal rates of progression. And, being in a free range environment, their quarters are not as confined, which allows for the reduced possibility of diseases. Thus resulting in less use of antibiotics. Instead, antibiotics are only used when needed, rather than as a preventative measure.

An additional aspect that makes grass-fed meat better than grain fed meat is the leanness of the meat. By having less fat (from a proper diet) the resulting meat is leaner!

Another benefit is that grass-fed meat also contains around 5x as many Omega-3 fatty acids as grain fed meat does and twice as much CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid)! These compounds are often associated with a reduction in body fat!

You will also find more vitamin A & E in grass-fed meat than you will in grain-fed meat.

Top tips for cooking with Grass-Fed Meat

Due to the leanness of the meat, the cooking time and procedures are changed slightly.

With grass-fed meat you will find that it cooks quicker and there is less shrinkage from fat loss since it is a leaner cut! This results in a thicker and juicier burger EVERY TIME!

Because of the quicker cooking time, people often overcook their grass-fed meat which results in a chewier texture than conventional grain-fed meats.

To combat this, all you need to do is cut back on the cooking time! And in some instances, you could greatly benefit from seasoning or marinading your meat too! When doing so, you’ll get a juicier and tender piece of meat every time!

Where can I buy grass-fed meat?

Some areas have local farms and butchers where they can obtain grass-fed meats! Although more often than not this is not the case.

I don’t have to worry about the effects that grain-fed meat has on my health, or where to buy grass-fed meats locally, thanks to my friends at Thrive Market.

In April, Thrive Market introduced an all-new grass-fed and free-range meat program! Which was made as an addition to their already existing online marketplace of organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, and healthy food options available nation-wide.

When testing their services out, they sent me a box of their new meats to try which included options like; chicken breast, ground beef, and salmon! But when they sent it to me, I was out of town! My family couldn’t resist waiting, so they opened it!

I pretended to open it again for your sake and made an unboxing video!

In this video, you’ll see all of the meat I received, and hear some more information on their amazing new program!

They truly have so many options already available in their marketplace, and this addition is a real game changer!

Not to mention, their products are already 25-50% cheaper on average than typical retail prices as they are solely an online marketplace! And they send it all right to your doorstep in a matter of days!

That discount didn’t seem like enough though, so I got you an extra 25% off your first order and a 30-day free trial when you use my link. Just a simple thank you from me to all of you!

My Favorite Dishes Made with Grass-Fed Meat

Now, as you probably know, I have a protein source in 99% of the things that I cook. So I figured it would be beneficial to you if I chose my 3 favorite dishes made with grass-fed and free-range meats!

Stir Fry Beef Salad With stir-fry, you are cooking the beef quickly within the saute. This is perfect for grass-fed meat in order to have a lean, quickly cooked, and tender addition!

Balsamic Grilled Chicken This recipe is so full of flavor, it would be a shame to use conventional-commercially processed chicken with it!

The Perfect Paleo Burger With grass-fed beef, the number one use is as ground beef. Due to the leanness of the meat, burgers and other things made from grass-fed beef end up thicker and juicier than any grain-fed beef would!

Crockpot Rump Roast This rump roast has stood the test of time for a reason! Seven years later and it is still one of the number one viewed recipes on my site. Don't miss out!

Crockpot Pulled Pork Nothing beats a tasty and simple pulled pork in my eyes! This one is seasoned with caveman rub and then left to cook in the crockpot! Super simple, yet wildly tasty!

I hope that this information helps you when making an informed decision as to whether or not you make the switch to grass-fed! Or that it reinforces your existing opinion on the topic!!!

Source: https://civilizedcavemancooking.com/wellness/grass-fed-meat/

[howellrichard]

11 Life-Changing Tips for Cancer Patients

Hiya Gorgeous,

I could not be more thrilled about the response so far to the Healing Cancer World Summit! Registration has been through the roof and people from all over the world are sharing their excitement. If you haven’t saved your seat yet, don’t wait another minute! This experience wouldn’t be the same without you.

Register for the FREE Healing Cancer World Summit!

When this Summit was still just an idea—before Hay House and I strategized, brainstormed and planned our butts off—I knew one thing for sure: I wanted this to be the most practical, useful event about cancer and prevention that you’ve ever attended. I knew that in order to truly support you on your healing journey, the lessons had to be chock-full of tools and advice you could put to use right away.

And while that advice could be life-changing, it couldn’t be overwhelming, fear-based or take forever to see the benefits. Because whether or not you or someone you love is currently facing a diagnosis, you’ve got enough going on in your life. I want to help you make things easier, not more complicated.

Today, I’m happy to report that that’s exactly what you can expect from the Healing Cancer World Summit. You’ll walk away from each and every incredible session with new tips to help you navigate a cancer diagnosis, feel better and more rested, reduce stress and fear, create or enhance your spiritual practice, connect more deeply with yourself and others, and so much more. I can’t wait for you to get your hands on these wonderful resources.

And when I say “I can’t wait,” I mean… I really can’t! That’s why I decided to update and bring back one of my favorite (and most popular!) posts of all time and share it with you today.

The eleven tips you’re about to read have been life-changing for me. Some of them may seem simple, but I come back to these practices whenever I need to get grounded and remind myself that living with cancer can be healthy—it can even be vibrant, abundant and filled with beauty.

Whether or not you’re living with cancer like me, these tips are universal. I know you’re going to find something (or maybe a few things!) that resonates with you.

So, let’s dive in…

During my teens and twenties, I celebrated (or avoided) Valentine’s Day. Each year had its own flavor. Heartache, romantic plans gone awry and some very sweet moments, too. But, February 14, 2003 changed that day forever. That’s the day I was diagnosed with an incurable, stage IV cancer.

Life stopped… and then transformed.

Valentine’s Day is a very spiritual celebration now. I call it my “cancerversary,” a day of deep self-love, reflection, gratitude and re-birth. It took me over a decade, post-diagnosis, to get to that sacred place. But, I’m here now and if you’re newly diagnosed, trust that you will get there, too.

For many patients, cancer is no longer a death sentence.

Really take that in. The first doctor I spoke to suggested a triple organ transplant, the second gave me 10 years to live. Thankfully, both were wrong and I didn’t listen. If you’ve been given statistical projections or an expiration date, there’s a good chance your well-meaning doctor could be wrong, too.

Once I found a better oncologist for my disease, my entire world opened up. As you may know, I have a weird slow-moving (could get aggressive one day) sarcoma. And though I’m living with cancer, I do it in a healthy, harmonious way. In fact, today I call myself a cancer thriver and I bet that no matter what your personal, medical or emotional pickle is (cancer or something else), you can be a thriver, too.

I would never say that life with cancer is easy, but it can be quite stunning and rich, even in the midst of the pain. These tips have helped me feel better and get stronger along the way. I think they’ll be useful for you or someone you love, too.

11 Tips for Healthy Living with Cancer

1. When the going gets tough, take a really deep breath.

This is the first (and most important) move you can make when the shit hits the fan. There will be endless ideas, advice, theories and even some medical bullying slung your way. Your breath is the gateway to your intuition—it will help you navigate the noise. Breathe and listen. Your breath also has the power to reduce stress (more on that below). When we’re in prolonged fight or flight mode, it’s hard to make decisions and easy to get depressed, anxious and exhausted. Breathe.

2. Find the best oncologist for your disease.

If I had listened to the first doctor, I wouldn’t be here today. Thankfully, I was willing to travel to find the best oncologist for my sarcoma. If you’re newly diagnosed (with any medical issue), I highly suggest you do the same. Your life is in their hands. Do they have experience and access to the latest research? Are they tapped into a network of colleagues who can discuss your case? Your local hospital may not cut it. My oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute understands all the current traditional treatment options for my disease. I still haven’t had any conventional treatment, but should my disease become aggressive, he’d be my first stop (but not my last).

How to find an oncologist: Start by Googling the top 10 cancer hospitals in the U.S. Also, use the resources below to explore the best oncologist for your specific cancer. In addition to these tips, network! I’ve found the best support by asking my doctor, family and friends.

National Cancer Institute’s Office of Cancer Centers

American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Cancer.Net Cancer Specific Resources

Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA)

3. Your oncologist (or other doctor) probably isn’t enough.

Build an integrative team. Integrative and functional medicine practitioners treat your whole body, not just the symptoms. How do they do that? With dietary recommendations, targeted supplements, IVs, stress management tips and other integrative therapies that improve your overall well-being, including boosting your immune system.

How to find an integrative MD: Check out the directories below. Again, network your butt off. Ask around and interview the prospective healing candidates—that’s right, they work for you.

Find a Functional Medicine Practitioner

American College for Advancement in Medicine

American Association for Naturopathic Physicians

4. Reduce inflammation. Eat plants.

In a nutshell: Embrace gorgeous greens, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, sea veggies, fruits and vegetables galore. Crowd out inflammatory, hormone-filled dairy and other animal products (even organic) by filling your plate with plant-strong, whole foods. And while you’re at it, dump the processed white stuff, especially sugar (it feeds cancer and other bullshit). Speaking of sugar, choose low-glycemic fruits and desserts. If you’re not interested in going full tilt vegan, make plants your main dish and think of everything else as a condiment. If you don’t ditch animal products, reduce your consumption to 2-3 times per week and avoid factory farm products at all costs. For delicious recipes, check out our recipe section at Kriscarr.com, Crazy Sexy Juice and Crazy Sexy Kitchen.

5. Juice your ass off. Not sugary juices.

Avoid store bought processed juices and choose fresh, green, healing juices that you make yourself. Organic is definitely best if you can afford it. If not, check out the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen for guidance on avoiding chemical-laden produce. Without a shadow of a doubt, my daily, low-glycemic green juice practice has allowed me to thrive in spite of my obstacles. My basic juicing rule for patients is a 3:1 ratio—three veggies to one low-glycemic fruit. You can also add lemon, as it has very little sugar. Ginger rocks too. Juices are nutrient dense, hydrating, energizing and medicinal. If you only have a blender, that’s great, too. Make green smoothies instead. Cheers!

6. Choose safe personal care and cleaning products.

The average person uses 9 personal care products per day containing about 126 chemical ingredients. But, the FDA doesn’t review or approve the majority of these products before they go to market. In addition, companies aren’t required to test their products and are allowed to leave hazardous chemicals off their labels. So, it’s no surprise that many of the chemicals found in personal care products have been linked to increased risks of cancer, infertility, birth defects, hormone disruption, etc. Babies, children, teens, adults—we’re all exposed to these chemicals on a daily basis and there’s still much we do not know about their long-term health effects. The same holds true for household cleaning products. Is your laundry detergent safe? Find out. Use the EWG’s Skin Deep Database and learn about toxic chemicals and body burden here.

7. Sedentary lifestyles are actually dangerous.

While it’s important to rest, lack of exercise actually speeds up muscle wasting, weakens your endurance and immunity, and creates more fatigue. Your body needs to move and stay strong. You’ll handle cancer treatments and other medical procedures better and recover faster when you have more muscle tone and flexibility. Did I mention proper bowel movements? Yeah… movement helps with that, too (pun intended!). Exercise also reduces inflammation and growth stimulators like estrogen, insulin and IGF-1. Studies have shown that even short bursts of exercise can have impressive results for your health. You don’t need a lot of time or fancy equipment to make a difference. But, you gotta get out of your chair and commit to some form of moderate exercise on a regular (almost daily) basis. Light weights, yoga, dance, martial arts—whatever rings your bell! Start with 10 minutes a day and see if you can work up to 30-60 minutes (do your best and always listen to your body).

8. Sleep like a champ.

A proper night’s sleep, especially between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., will help you heal—for real. Not only will you be able to respond to treatments better, but restful sleep activates your body’s own regenerative abilities. You don’t have to enter monastic life and stick to perfect sleep hygiene, ya just need to create the conditions for more sleep on a consistent basis. Keep your room cool, block out all light, dump the coffee by noon—or switch to green tea (coffee = 140 milligrams of caffeine per serving, green tea = 25 milligrams)—peel back on the alcohol and drink it earlier with food (alcohol disrupts melatonin and blood sugar), give yourself time to wind down and set a loving intention: May I be peaceful, calm and sleepy!

The Healing Cancer World Summit starts on October 17!

REGISTER NOW!

9. Wrangle your stress.

Stress releases a cascade of hormones in your body. This is all well and good when you need to run or move out of the way quickly. But when the source of your stress is prolonged, like a cancer diagnosis that takes years or even a lifetime to manage, stress can become your number one enemy. Being diagnosed with cancer is one of the most traumatic events that can happen in anyone’s life. But, there are ways to manage the panic so it doesn’t weaken your immune system, disrupt your sleep and create more illness in your body. Meditation, hiking in the woods, pottery, yoga—anything that gets you out of your head and into your heart/body. In addition, you may need some good ole professional support. Yup, a shrink. Figure out what works for sweet you, and don’t forget a good ole massage from time to time. We hold so many issues in our precious tissues.

10. Accept where you are right now.

Unconditional acceptance is the path of the spiritual warrior. It takes courage to embrace your current situation—to be present and loving toward yourself exactly as you are. You are your reality. You are your truth. Can you change? Absolutely! But, even talking about change puts us in the future. And while there’s definitely a time for that, building a strong foundation in the now will allow you to consistently love and care for yourself. Stop for a minute. Give yourself props. Take in your good. If you’re hell bent on strategizing about all that could be better, then you must promise to give equal time to what’s amazing right now. When I was first diagnosed, my burning goal was remission. Anything else seemed like colossal failure. And, even worse—my fault. Over a decade later, I’m a master at my own advice. I accept wonderful me, cancer and all. Does that mean that I’ve given up on my health? Of course not! It means I love and respect myself no matter what.

Acceptance is different from quitting. It means that no matter what happens, you won’t abandon yourself in your time of need. And, here’s the part that contributes to your overall well-being: Acceptance allows you to rest, renew and replenish.

Life doesn’t start when “this, that or the other thing” is resolved. Life is now & it’s great! @Kris_Carr #cancer

11. Educate yourself.

Here are three powerful books that have been cancer lifelines for me:

1. Life Over Cancer by Keith Block M.D. (This is a must-read by my integrative oncologist.) 2. Anticancer Living by Lorenzo Cohen, PhD and Alison Jefferies (This book is outstanding!) 3. Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips by Kris Carr (Yours truly—writing that book rescued my life.)

I hope you’ll give these tips a try. Remember, you don’t have to transform your life overnight. Small, manageable changes go a long way when it comes to feeling better.

You are a treasured member of my virtual family, and I love you. Keep taking care of yourself. And here’s an extra special twelfth tip…

Join me for the Healing Cancer World Summit! I partnered with my friends at Hay House to bring you this free event packed with practical tools and tips to help you face cancer—whether you’re a patient, caregiver or interested in prevention. You’ll hear from 20 of the world’s leading integrative oncologists, nutritionists, wellness experts, spiritual teachers and remarkable patients.

Register here! The Healing Cancer World Summit runs from October 17-23.

Your turn: What tips and tricks have helped you along your health journey? Share in the comments below!

Peace & thriving,

The post 11 Life-Changing Tips for Cancer Patients appeared first on KrisCarr.com.

[fitnesswomenshealth-blog]

5 Reasons that counting calories will make you dumb and fat

New Post has been published on https://cialiscom.org/5-reasons-that-counting-calories-will-make-you-dumb-and-fat.html

5 Reasons that counting calories will make you dumb and fat

If you’re trying to lose weight, let me guess…

Have you weighed yourself too often? Counted food calories too often? Counted exercise calories too often?

Obviously, if you burn more calories than you consume, you’ll lose weight.

But how do you do it? What healthy habits can you create to lose weight and keep it off?

A lot of weight loss programs focus on empty processes going for instant calorie deficit. You know the fatigue and epic binging that follow. The orange Cheetos stains might still be on your fingers.

You’ve always felt there should be a healthy AND satisfying way to do food and exercise, but we’ve lost it.

Until recently.

“Ancestral” diets have surfaced, as well as new exercise and lifestyle methods.

If you want to silence the calorie-counting health app on your phone, there are truly effective concepts for weight loss.

Let’s start with these five…

1. Modern wheat was invented in the 1960’s to slow starvation in third world countries. Great idea, iffy results.

Wheat, corn, and soy are out of control.

Understanding that our bodies are the same now as they were 30,000 plus years ago helps guide new research. We evolved as hunter-gatherers with wild sources of food that were scarce.

Farming started only 10,000 years ago. Yet Homo sapiens like us were thriving and evolved eons before.

The Primal Diet, Bulletproof Diet, etc. have preached omitting most grains completely. Research has shown that grain has led to modern diseases for various reasons.

Are you grain-sensitive? Meaning you’re sensitive to me telling you not to eat bread or pasta?

Grain is now 20–50% of the diet in most modern populations. If you’re not eating it directly, you’re eating animals that eat it and taking in lectins and toxins either way.

The current version of wheat grain was invented in the late 1960’s. Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Prize for the new hybrid and his production methods. They would help limit starvation.

It led to a much bigger yield and then over-consumption. Gluten is but one of the lectins in grains. Actually, “whole grains” have even more lectins than white grain products. Lectins cause auto-immune diseases and increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut.)

Lectins upset your body’s internal communications, and hormonal functions get disrupted. That makes weight management and other functions more difficult. Arthritis, Alzheimer’s, Diabetes, and autoimmune diseases are linked to the lectin situation.

Have you tried stopping all grain consumption for a bit? Also, stop the grain-fed dairy you’re consuming. Try it for a month. Switch to grass-fed butter. Eliminate milk and cheese. Double or triple your veggies (not nightshades) and add a little fruit.

Some of these “healthy whole wheat” products are packaged as low calorie, but their lectins make you fat and diseased. It’s easy to be tricked by calorie talk. Artificial sweeteners have zero calories, but study after study prove that they make you fat and diseased.

So, in case of starvation, eat wheat. Other than that, let it die on the shelf. Should take a few months.

2. I can’t get no… satiation.

Don’t you feel like food should be tasty and satisfying. Shouldn’t that lead to not overeating? Why do we want more and more? And more.

Satiety and satiation refer to nutritional signaling to the brain to give you happy satisfaction from your food choices. The signals will tell you to stop. The signaling may also say “Put the pie and the vodka down, you freak.” It depends, your signaling may be a little sassier than mine.

Satiation makes you stop eating, and satiety keeps you feeling satisfied for a while.

For the two S’s you need high-fiber foods, protein, or fat. The fiber and protein might make sense to you, but some of us still think fats are unhealthy. I get it, you’re a bad girl or boy, and you don’t want to be too good to yourself. Keep reading.

Choosing the right fats (non-toxic ones) is huge for being healthy and having satisfaction. Again, the ancestral diets have this down very well. Toxins are stored in fat and meat on animals. So, eating fat from toxic animals will transplant the toxins to you.

Guess what’s wrong with fat from healthy, pastured, grass-fed animals. Nothing.

The toxic fats will start a fat storage process in your body. These inflammatory fats have the same 9 calories per gram as healthy fats. So again, staying lean will not happen from focusing on calories.

Toxic, oxidized oils like soybean and canola will make you fat from inflammation and oxidize your cells, placing you squarely in free-radical city. Free radicals cause inflammation and disease. And they will rip your cardiovascular system to shreds.

There are truckloads of soybean oil and canola in grocery store and restaurant product. These two oils alone might make up over 30% of your total calories! That crap is in everything.

If you want to stay lean, you gotta eat your veggies and leafy greens. Veggies provide satiety from the fiber. They’re also super low-calorie if that still turns you on. The mass of fat-soluble vitamins and minerals in veggies are absorbed if eaten with fat. Plus, the fat makes a veggie portion even more satiating.

Make veggies as delicious as they’re supposed to be. Most of them need to be cooked. Season them nicely, and butter them up. Cook them slowly without killing them completely. Or make a huge salad with lots of olive oil. Remember to stay away from the nightshades with lectins. All ancestral diets will agree.

Are you feeling me yet that only focusing on the number of calories in your food is dumb at best? Satiating, non-inflammatory foods will keep your appetite and fat storage down.

Don’t delete your health app just yet. I’ll show you, it is good for something.

3. Cavemen cooking with fire is what evolved our big ole brains.

Believe it or not, modern humans didn’t evolve to our state until after we began cooking with fire.

That’s right. Our brains didn’t finish their growth past other humanoids until after cooking. The book “Catching Fire” by Richard Wrangham goes into great detail.

The caveman version of chef Gordon Ramsey was cranking up his fire pit and cursing out his entire clan even 40,000 years ago.

We couldn’t scarf enough calories to feed this big ole brain without some cooked foods. Beginning to cook and process more calories is what gave us the larger brain and also guts that were smaller than apes.

The right raw foods are awesome as well, obviously. Avocados, and salad greens come to mind. Some of the diets focusing too much on calories try to use mostly raw foods because they’re so low in calories. They ignore poisonous lectins and think that raw is natural. But cooking, which we’ve done at varying levels for 200,000 plus years is also natural.

Most fruits are going to be good in limited quantities, in season. If fruits or veggies taste good raw, they’re usually good for you raw. If not, they are probably slowly poisoning you with phytates, protease inhibitors, or lectins. Those are the protectants used by plants to slowly poison their predators. Believe it. These little green guys are trying to kill us!

Take a bell pepper for example. It doesn’t seem to taste very good raw, but you may be on the fence. That bell pepper has a lot of the poisonous demons I described. Cooking and removing skin and seeds will help, but some lectins will remain. In Italy tomatoes are deskinned and deseeded to be rid of most lectins.

Gluten is the most famous lectin, and lectins are the reason that almost any wheat, corn or soy product will be harmful with regular use. I refer to Dr. Steven Gundry’s extensive work and helpful lists when it comes to lectins. Lectins aren’t only making us fat. They’re truly killing us.

There is a long list of produce that carry the especially dangerous lectins that includes nightshade vegetables as well as squashes, legumes, cereal grains, white potatoes, soy, corn, and others. This would be why everyone is telling you sweet potatoes are okay but white potatoes are the devil. Nothing to do with calories. The lectins are in fact, the devil.

Here’s some good news while I’m ruining your day trashing all the foods you love. White rice has less lectin than brown rice, and white bread, especially sourdough, is better than whole wheat. Feel better?

4. Mitochondria are so important, humans are mating with them.

You heard me right. Two people use their DNA to mate with a third person’s healthy mitochondrial DNA. Test tube style.

A 3-parent baby. The last time this was legal in America or the EU was back in 2000 when a now 17-year-old named Alana was born.

Mitochondria are unique organelles in most of our cells. They are the power plants of the cell. Uniquely, they have their own DNA. They were originally bacteria hosted in our bodies that became part of us.

Recently, nutrition experts Dave Asprey, Mark Sisson, and Robb Wolf have told us that modern mitochondria are struggling. They need improvement for optimal energy, metabolism, and disease prevention. Food, sleep, drugs, stress, and even artificial light are harming our little partners.

Nutritional ketosis and intermittent fasting are being used by people to reprogram the DNA in mitochondria.

Imagine your mitochondria being so powerful that you can utilize 600 calories a day from compounds called ketones from the liver. That’s 600 less food calories you need for energy. That results in less oxidation, better energy, and better weight management.

With too much carbs and also frequent meals, we’ve created weak and scarce mitochondria that are not burning as much fat as they could.

That’s why everyone is talking about intermittent fasting and ketosis, two methods that build mitochondria. See my article about how I was tricked into nutritional ketosis here…

Clearly, if couples are adding a 3rd anonymous parent to the mix, there’s something to the mito-hysteria.

Would you skip breakfast or decrease carbs every now and then to boost mitochondria and become a fat burner?

It’s not about calorie counting and doesn’t require going hungry. It’s about boosting mitochondria. No need for test tube polygamy, unless you’re just into that.

5. Your prehistoric ancestors never did Pilates or circuit training.

I’m a former Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (CSCS.) I was a full-time strength & speed coach, mainly for a major college football program, and I’m telling you, we were not meant to exercise.

Great news, right?! Well hold up, don’t strap up your hammock yet. We respond better to lots of “physical activity” than to lots of intense “exercise.”

Physical activity as light as walking or mild yoga is awesome for us, but too much strenuous exercise can be detrimental. Walking is good for fat burning in a hormonal way, not necessarily for the calories burned.

Obviously, athletes the world over are doing frequent, intense work with great success, but they are usually in their teens and 20’s. They usually don’t have insulin resistance yet from all the carbs and protein required. They can also afford to sleep like crazy, supplement like crazy, and do any modern training methods to recover and get the job done. They’ve had hundreds more ice baths than you.

Do not train like an athlete unless someone is paying you handsomely. And get a good, guaranteed contract.

Nothing good happens in your body without hormones. Growth hormone, for example, burns fat and builds muscle. Deep sleep is a big factor in growth hormone production among other things. Many factors affect testosterone production, and it’s also a crucial hormone, and there is much more to the endocrine system than just these two.

If you’re doing things right, you aim to do the minimal effective dose to get the hormonal results you want. Too much training can stimulate the stress hormones like cortisol. That’s bad unless you like more sugar in your bloodstream. The Russians did oodles of exercise research in the 1980’s as they were going to ridiculous measures to win the Olympics. I think they won a few medals, and much research has been done since.

We’ve learned that time under tension in a weight-lifting workout drastically improves the hormonal response that will build muscle and burn fat.

The time under tension workout in Dr. Doug McGuff’s book “Body by Science” will do in 12 minutes a week what you accomplish in three 45-minute workouts. It does more actually, and yes, that’s 12 minutes per 7 days. I still do a second lifting session, with a few heavy lifts and a lot of stretching and maintenance work. Nothing intense.

I can’t believe I used to do 3–4 long lifting sessions a week for worse results. Too much lifting also got me into sleep deprivation and adrenal fatigue, which increased food cravings and fat storage.

Those McGuff workouts include all of 5 sets total, one set of each exercise. Each set is about 5 super slow reps(about 10 sec up/10sec down) with the set lasting 90 seconds to 2 minutes. You get to failure on each set with very little time between sets. Believe me 90 seconds is an absolute eternity, much less 5 of those back to back. Go for it, you’ll see.

The hormonal response to this workout is off the charts for muscle maintenance or growth as well as fat burning and a cellular aerobic benefit.

Raise your hand if you’ve had a trainer, or a machine, or a phone app telling you how many calories you’ve burned. Let’s say it’s 600 calories over forty minutes that your trainer jumped, twisted, rolled, punched, and lunged out of you.

A long, intense workout like that will cause a need for extra food calories that surpasses the calories burned in the workout. So, you went backwards. There’s no way to green smoothie your way out of it either. The craving for extra calories is now there. Better make sure it’s the type of workout that gives you massive hormonal benefit.

Keep it short, very intense, and infrequent versus long, torturous, and often.

And what about that extra sleep the long workouts cause a need for? Yes, that’s a thing. Do you have 9 hours of sleep in your time budget? You’ll cause a need for 8 or 9 hours with the long workouts but probably only get your normal 6 or 7. Now you’re sleep deprived. Here come the extra food cravings and insulin resistance.

One or two short, intense lifting workouts a week with one or two 10 to 20-minute, high intensity interval runs would be ideal for most of us.

Fitness Master Thomas Delauer

I also recommend light jogging or something in the morning on an empty stomach. Keep it around 120–140 bpm depending on age and go 15–40 minutes. Very effective fat burner and toxin mobilizer, and it’s very mild. You should be able to have a conversation. It’s not the long tortuous, detrimental workout I described earlier. Thomas Delauer agrees.

Strenuous activities for extended periods every couple of weeks are great. Maybe a 1–3 hour mountain biking trek or random adventure. The rest of the time, lots of general physical activity like walking will be better for you. And that’s where your phone’s health app comes in. The step counter or mile counter will let you know you’re being a Home sapiens and moving around enough. Health apps have some very smart features, but too much focus on calories does more harm than good.

As a hunter-gatherer you didn’t have to chase down a bison 5 times a week. We walked a lot, climbed, carried stuff, slept a lot, and we did some intense activity every now and then. Your hormones respond well to that life with movement. It’s not about the calories in or out.

“Make your long, easy workouts longer and easier, and make your short, intense workouts even shorter and more intense.” -ancestral living guru Dr. Mark Sisson

https://www.marksdailyapple.com/introducing-the-new-primal-blueprint/

If you are here, and you are… then you were meant to really punch it every now and then to survive something serious. As a hunter-gatherer, if you didn’t go with max intensity when it counted, well that genetic version was eaten by a tiger. Or evaded by the bison you were hunting and starved. That version of us was naturally deselected out, plucked out of history. Those genes are gone from us.

So, keep that in mind when doing the “Body by Science” workout and getting to failure on each set. Your genes are made for it. Consult your physician first.

Make America Human Again

Things as holistic as nutrition or exercise are tricky to optimize. Our bodies, stresses, relationships, mentality, and proximity to Whole Foods Market are ever-changing.

You want to find simplicity, but you need to learn some sound concepts and see if you can execute them with satisfaction.

Focusing on an instant net calorie deficit is far too simplistic and not truly satisfying or effective long term.

Imagine that caveman version of yourself again. Add a smartphone and some clothes, but everything else about your vision is Paleolithic.

What preserved, boxed foods are around? Where are all the caged chickens cooped up? All the antibiotic-laced, GMO-fed livestock? Where are all the refined carbs? Or the year-round fruit? Where are the three meals a day? Where’s the office chair and the car? Where’s the 5 days a week at the gym?

Recently, we have tested some sound ancestral concepts with modern, tech-savvy methods. You can even keep more than just your phone and clothes, and you can still hit the gym.

Join millions of people who are using science and anthropology to pioneer their way to health and satisfaction. You’ll really enjoy being a human for a change.

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[fitsteph29-blog]

The most common story I hear every time someone try to debate me on eggs is that they are claiming that eggs are okay for vegans to eat them because they are not killing the hen.  Sadly no killing them does not make their living situation any better, hens are being mutilated, tortured and starve their entire life till they can stand anymore.

American consume about 200 million eggs every day, making the egg demand bigger and bigger and the care for these animals less important.  The naturally hens lay about 10-15 eggs per year, but know they are been genetically modified to produce 200-300 eggs per year.  The stress that hens presents when taking their eggs make them to produce more eggs.  The problem with hens producing so many eggs is that this is a very intensive reproductive process, they reproductive system is made up of five parts and this intense process can take up to 26 hours. This is physically devastating for the hens, I mean can you imagine yourself going on labor for 26 hours over and over and over again? I bet you don’t.

To produce eggs shells hens need to give 10%  of their calcium from her bones  their egg shells, but by them being forced to produce so many eggs every year they need a bigger amount of calcium, bigger that her entire skeleton by 30% or more.  This make them weak, their bones break, they can’t stand, and they suffer from osteoporosis and paralysis.   Hens bodies get so tired of producing so many eggs that egg get stuck in inside their bodies, breaking inside them and causing infections, cancers and deaths.  Hens also suffer from liver disease, fatigue and much more.

The conditions these poor animals live are horrifying.  There are small cages with up to 10 hens inside them, suffer from legs and claws abnormalities, lose their feathers, they can’t stretch or spread their wings, the lower hens are getting all the pee and poo from the hens on top and many more horrible conditions giving hens a physiological stress.  There are about 125,000 hens by shed so imagine all the feces, toxic gases, ammonia in these sheds, these cause infections in the hen’s eyes and respiratory system.

The stresses that hens live are so intense that they go plucking out their own feathers, or even eat their own eggs to recuperate the calcium they are losing.  Of course this is something that the egg industry can’t afford because damaged bodies won’t be good selling for meat.  To prevent this from happening egg industries debeak chicks with a razor blade, a hot blade or infrared laser on tempeture up to 1500 degrees F and without anesthesia. The beak is a very complex, functional organ with an extensive nerve supply causing several anatomical, physiological and biochemical changes on these poor animals damaging their tissues.  The pain is so intense that they can’t eat and they even die of dehydration, or their immune system lowers, their behavior reduces, their activities go down and affect their social behavior, in other words they suffer from chronic pain, and this includes FREE-RANGE and ORGANIC EGGS.

When eggs are hatched almost 50% of the eggs where male, and males do not produce eggs or grow fast enough to kill for meat so they are ground up alive or discarded on garbage bags or throw away n large dumpsters were they die of suffocation.

Another egg industry standard is to starve the hens in order to shock their tired bodies into a rapid egg laying circle, this process involves starving the hen for up to 18 days keeping them from food, water and in the dark the entire time.  According to the US department of agriculture at any given time over six million egg laying hens in the US are being systematically starved in their cages.  After 8-12 months of egg production the hen will that to decrease their egg production, so they are put o the process of force moulting to shock their bodies into the rapid egg laying circle.  This is awesome for the egg industries because they don’t have to waste money on food or water for these hens.

When they can’t produce anymore at the age on one and a half (when natural hens life circle are 10-12 years) they are send to slaughter houses, but because their bodies have to many abnormalities and are full of bruises they are used for shredded or can foods so they can hide their deformities.  The other horror behind this is that the hens are grinded ALIVE or they are being gassing or dumped them into landfills.  Even on the organic and free-range egg industries hen egg production decreases and they are send to be killed and sold.

CHICKENS ARE NOT PROTECTED BY THE HUMAINE SLAUGHTER ACT!

The egg production not only affects human health (read my latest article) and is horrifying for these living creatures but it is also non-environmentally friendly.  To produce just one egg it takes 3 kg of grain in the form of chicken feed and 200 liters of water, this is 2,400 liters of water just for one dozen, can you imagine how many people we could help with this amount of water.   There are hundreds of millions of pounds of feces treating eco systems and human health contaminating over 35,000 miles of rives and 22 states and contaminating ground water in over 17 states.

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La sangre detrás de los huevos

La historia más común que oigo cada vez que alguien trata de debatirme sobre los huevos es que ellos dicen que los huevos están bien para que los veganos los coman porque no están matando a la gallina. Lamentablemente, no matarlas no hace que su situación de vida sea mejor, las gallinas están siendo mutiladas, torturadas hasta morir de hambre por toda su vida hasta que no puedan soportar más. Los estadounidenses consumen unos 200 millones de huevos al día, haciendo que la demanda de huevos sea cada vez mayor y el cuidado de estos animales sea menos importante. Las gallinas ponen naturalmente alrededor de 12-13 huevos por año, pero ahora han sido modificados genéticamente para producir 200-300 huevos por año. El estrés que las gallinas presentan al tomar sus huevos hacen que produzcan más huevos. El problema con las gallinas que producen tantos huevos es que se trata de un proceso reproductivo muy intensivo, en el que el sistema reproductivo se compone de cinco partes y este proceso intenso puede tomar hasta 26 horas. Esto es físicamente devastador para las gallinas, puede imaginar usted estar en labor de parto por 26 horas una y otra y otra vez? Apuesto a que no.

Para producir cáscaras de huevos las gallinas necesitan dar el 10% de su calcio de sus huesos a sus cáscaras de huevo, pero por al ser obligadas a producir tantos huevos cada año, ellas necesitan una mayor cantidad de calcio, más grande que su esqueleto entero en un 30% o más . Esto las hace débiles, sus huesos se rompen, no pueden soportar, y sufren de osteoporosis y parálisis. Los cuerpos de gallinas se cansan tanto de producir tantos huevos que el huevo se queda atrapado dentro de sus cuerpos, rompiéndose dentro de ellas y causando infecciones, cánceres y muertes. Las gallinas también sufren de enfermedad hepática, fatiga y mucho más. Las condiciones de vida de estos pobres animales son horripilantes. Hay jaulas pequeñas con hasta 10 gallinas dentro de ellas, donde sufren de anomalías de piernas y garras, pierden sus plumas, no se pueden estirar o extender sus alas, las gallinas inferiores están obteniendo todo el orin y otros desperdicios de las gallinas en la parte superior y siga sumandole muchas condiciones más horribles que le dan a las gallinas un estrés fisiológico. Hay alrededor de 125.000 gallinas por cobertizo por lo que debe imaginar todas las heces, gases tóxicos y amoníaco en estos cobertizos, causando infecciones en los ojos de la gallina y el sistema respiratorio.

El estrés que viven las gallinas es tan intenso que ellas optan por sacar sus propias plumas, o incluso comer sus propios huevos para recuperar el calcio que están perdiendo. Por supuesto esto es algo que la industria del huevo no puede permitirse porque los cuerpos dañados no serán buenos para vender luego para carne. Para evitar que esto ocurra las industrias de los huevos deben cortar los picos de los pollitos con una cuchilla de afeitar, una lámina caliente o un láser infrarrojo en una temperatura de hasta 1500 grados F y sin anestesia. El pico es un órgano muy complejo y funcional con un suministro extenso de nervios causando varios cambios anatómicos, fisiológicos y bioquímicos en estos pobres animales dañando sus tejidos. El dolor es tan intenso que no pueden comer e incluso mueren de deshidratación, o su sistema inmunológico disminuye, su comportamiento se reduce, sus actividades disminuyen y afectan su comportamiento social, es decir sufren de dolor crónico, y esto incluye los HUEVOS LIBRES y ORGÁNICOS.

Cuando los pollitos nacen, casi el 50% de ellos son machos y los machos no producen huevos ni crecen lo suficientemente rápido como para matarlos para carne, de modo que son triturados vivos o desechados en bolsas de basura vivos o tirados en  grandes basureros donde mueren de asfixia. Otro estándar de la industria del huevo es matar de hambre a las gallinas con el fin de sorprender a sus cuerpos cansados ​​en un círculo de puesta rápida de huevos, este proceso implica dejar con hambre la gallina hasta po 18 días deprivandolas de los alimentos, el agua y dejandolas en la oscuridad todo el tiempo. Según el departamento de agricultura de los Estados Unidos en cualquier momento dado, más de seis millones de gallinas ponedoras de huevos en los Estados Unidos son sistemáticamente muertas de hambre en sus jaulas. Después de 8-12 meses de producción de huevos la gallina hará que disminuya su producción de huevos, por lo que se ponen en el proceso de morir de  hambre  sacudir sus cuerpos en el círculo de puesta rápida de huevos. Esto es espectacular para las industrias de los huevos porque no tienen que gastar dinero en comida o agua para estas gallinas.

Cuando ya no pueden producir a la edad de un año y medio (cuando el círculo de vida de gallinas naturales son de 10-12 años) se envían a mataderos, pero debido a que sus cuerpos tienen muchas anormalidades y están llenos de magulladuras se usan para los alimentos triturados, como embutidos, sopas y otros, para así poder ocultar sus deformidades. El otro horror detrás de esto es que las gallinas son trituradas VIVAS o están siendo arrojadas en vertederos. Incluso en las industrias de huevos orgánicos y de gallinas libres, la producción de huevos disminuye y se envían para ser sacrificados y vendidos.

¡LOS POLLOS NO ESTÁN PROTEGIDOS POR LA LEY DE MUERTE DE HUMANA! La producción de huevos no sólo afecta a la salud humana (leer mi último artículo) y es horripilante para estas criaturas vivientes, pero también es no respetuoso del medio ambiente. Para producir sólo un huevo se necesitan 3 kg de grano en forma de comida de pollo y 200 litros de agua, esto es 2.400 litros de agua sólo por una docena, ¿te imaginas cuántas personas podíamos ayudar con esta cantidad de agua? Hay cientos de millones de libras de heces que amenazan los sistemas ecológicos y la salud humana contaminando más de 35,000 millas de rios y 22 estados y contaminando el agua subterránea en más de 17 estados. 

The Blood Behind The Eggs/La Sangre Detras de los Huevos The most common story I hear every time someone try to debate me on eggs is that they are claiming that eggs are okay for vegans to eat them because they are not killing the hen. 

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

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For a lot of us, companion animals are as much family as the people we don’t really want to see even on the holidays. For some of us, they are working partners, part of our mental well-being, and our therapy all rolled into one. While most of our companion animals are going to be cats and dogs, there are also birds, pigs, goats and even horses that fit the bill of a pet as opposed to solely being livestock. Livestock or pets, we took responsibility for a feeling creature’s life, and we owe it to them to take care of them.

That means adding to the long lists of things we need to do, buy and plan for should our worlds fall apart on either a small-scale or a large-scale.

I’ll mostly focus on the cats and dogs, but a lot will apply to anything, from ferrets to pot-bellied pigs.

Water for Mr. Whiskers

Just like people need food and water, so do our animals. Ferret to bunny, pony to puppy, if the animals dehydrate, we’re in a world of hurt.

Water is going to really be a biggie should the world or nation ever collapse. Try to monitor the water use in winter and in summer, or in high-activity seasons, so we keep at least a week or so on hand for them (ideally more).

With animals, we also have to remember that a lot of them pant. Whether it’s a stress action or cooling action, panting will dry them out and we’ll need to allot extra water for them.

It may be possible to do sub-cutaneous fluids for even very small livestock if it becomes necessary, but ideally, it’s not necessary. In an emergency, we’ll have to monitor our animals just like we do small children and seniors.

Bathing animals may take an even lower priority, but in that case, we may need to come up with a smell and-or pest plan.

Commercially Available Long-Storage Foods

Food might be simple, or it might be more complicated.

There are “normal” commercially available freeze-dried pet foods. There is no way I’d buy them. I’d be totally broke and then my beloved fur-balls would be in a shelter anyway.

There are long-term storage foods available in buckets. The Ready Store sells one, and  MayDay makes another. One of the wholesale bulk warehouse stores sells a bucket of food for cats or dogs as well.

I consider them about on par with Ol’ Roy, on top of being expensive. I do have a couple of buckets of cat food (I really think they came from Costco) but I have every intention of using a Pearson Square to make it part of the protein component and it’s mostly there for helping to clean their teeth.

MRE Depot sells doggy biscuit treats and at one point sold those “quart” #2.5 cans of dog and cat food. However, MRE Depot tends to … think very highly of their products, and I have dogs who consider those single-serving cans.

Plus, again, this is not Blue Buffalo or Nutrish level dining here.

Therefore, I tend to avoid the commercial long-storage options. I either repackage, or I create “normal” food storage for my furry friends.

Repacking for Rufus & Rex

I pack Milky Bones and Alpo squares in mylar and oxygen absorbers, and in canning jars with oxygen absorbers. I keep in several bags of food that get rotated, even with the oil-rancidity risks of our hot Southern summers. (Wowser article that I ignore)

I have tried to repackage bagged pet food in Mylar with oxygen absorbers, but it tends to barely extend the life by 2-4 months – which is not overly worth it to me. In cooler climates, with fewer or smaller animals, it might be worth it to be able to open smaller increments.

Stocking Up for Socks & Spot

I could just buy cans of cat and dog food, but we rarely feed it. That means whole stacks of flats end up donated on a regular basis as it comes time to rotate, and the deductible barely dents replacement costs every year.

While I don’t mind giving some extra love to unwanted shelter animals, I need to be able to take care of mine.

Years ago when imported foods started making animals sick, I started making homemade food. There are a million and five recipes available, with the best options very home and animal-specific.

We had incredible results from it. The older dogs perked up, leaned down, tightened up, and played more. Periodic tummy sensitivities and Gassy Gus went away almost overnight. Attention, retention, and stamina went through the roof.

I no longer make all of our pet feed, but I do still make a portion of it and I tend to make extras of certain foods to add to the scraps our animals get.

For us, a casserole or soup worked best. I make up enormous kettles in one go, freeze a portion, and pull out three days’ worth at a time to defrost. It’s then as easy as scooping.

For an emergency, it won’t be quiet that easy, since I won’t have fridge and freezer space for the pets’ foods, but I will still be making them basically human foods.

Storage Foods for Pets

Powdered Eggs make up the backbone of the protein and fats that are stored for the dogs and cats. Commercially, they’re available as whole eggs or scrambled egg mix. They can also be dehydrated at home if inclined.

Oatmeal, barley, brown rice & white rice are my go-to feeds for the dogs, both in daily life and in the stored foods. The oatmeal especially is cheap, fast, and easy. The grains make for a decent calorie base and belly filler for dogs and rodents.

Potatoes are stocked for both the cats and the dogs, home-dehydrated as well as commercial buckets and #10 cans of slices, dices and grated shreds. I even can baked potato skins, although the cats won’t touch those. They’re full of good nutrients for the dogs.

Apples, Carrots & Sweet Potatoes are present for the cats and dogs, with the dogs a little heavier than the cats on the apples and sweet potatoes or sweet African yams. Again, I can dehydrate them at home, or buy them in affordable bulk to repackage or already set in cans and buckets. The veggies give the animals much-needed vitamins, just as they do us.

Peas are no longer part of my animal-diet plan. Some dogs handle them, some don’t. There are enough other options, I tend to just skip them now, but for years I included them.

Berries are fine for cats and dogs most of the time, but they tend to be expensive and human favorites so with the exception of copiously producing cranberry-equivalent bushes, I don’t allot many to the animals. Cats and dogs are less likely to eat the bitter berries than birds or ferrets.

Greens are dehydrated, purchased dehydrated, and grown in tin soup cans, small Dollar Tree cubes and planters, and outside. They’re also foraged wild. While the animals may not be super wild about them, and the greens should represent a smaller proportion of feed than even something like apples or carrots, they are another one that is stacked-legit with nutrients – especially the nutrients we’ll find lacking in lean animals and winter.

Boiled with something meaty or flat-fried or baked-and-chipped eggs, our cats, dogs, rats, and ferrets will dive on greens just as fast as they will a chunk of salmon jerky or broth from meat trimmings.

Milk gets stored as a calcium source and calorie boost. My animals handle whey milk and soy milk without any problems, so I can buy whatever’s cheapest at the time. Previous animals have handled raw milk and goat milk even if pasteurized was off the table.

Most long-storage milk is fat-free, so I have to be aware and get their fats in from something else.

When’s lunch?

Fish is a major part of my dogs’ and cats’ long-term food storage plan. For a few dollars a year, I can spend days in the sun collecting dozens and hundreds of pounds of feed for them. Skins and some of the organs we don’t even want help boost proteins and oils for the animals.

Especially important with cats, pressure canning or drying fish for storage creates something I can open or soak-and-simmer to create an enticing scent. If cats can’t smell food, they won’t eat.

Without a fishing license or with prohibitive keeper restrictions, tuna in oil and then tuna in water (which will last longer) can make somewhat less-expensive food-flavoring options. There are places that sell cod, shrimp, and salmon, but it tends to be freeze-dried and pretty pricey.

Repacking well-dried jerky-like treats to extend the storage life might be another option to consider to induce kitties to eat.

Peanut Butter Powder is also in my storage for the animals, but it’s there mainly to make them homemade doggy “biscotti” biscuits that will give them something to gnaw and help keep their teeth in better shape.

Wheat & corn are in my storage, but not for my animals. A lot of dogs and cats don’t actually process much corn, and some are sensitive to wheat. With potatoes, rice, and oats inexpensive and compact, I can easily avoid having wheat and corn be their base calories.

Transitioning Foods

Pets or people, we’ll want to plan transitions between foods – almost always. While some animals don’t need it, even transitions between types of kibble or canned foods should be done slowly.

You replace 1/10 to 1/4 the feed for 2-5 days, then another 1/10 or 1/4. If an emergency requires it, you can go ahead and skip to 50-50 blends or 70-30 new-old blends.

My preference is to have dry food as a finisher or by itself at least several times weekly, because it really is better on their teeth. When we transition to smokes and raw bones, we use a step process as well.

It’s my personal belief that because my animals do get scraps and leftovers, and do get trimmings and bones stewed for them, their guts stay ready to process more foods. Skipping a meal or a few days of their usual feeds doesn’t bother my animals’ stomachs at all.

Just like people, animals vary widely, so consult a vet and add those transitions slowly.

Goodies for Evac Kits

Red Cross and FEMA sites are happy to list out supplies to consider for our animals. Whether we’re evac’ing alone, with a cat, or with a trailer of six crated dogs, two goats and three horses, there are some goodies we might want to add to make everybody more comfortable, both during the trip and after.

Portable, battery-operated fans (blow into crates)

Misting systems/bottles

Umbrellas, portable pavilions (shade, rain coverage)

Animal entertainment

Spare towels

Tarps

Treats (even hooved livestock like treats, such as applesauce or sweet pellets)

Hoods

Fly screen/fly hoods/mesh, and-or tiki torches or various Off fan types (flies and mosquitoes are bears)

Pool mattresses (elevated bedding)

Nail trimmers & file (to save the air mattresses)

Garbage bags, kitty litter, shovels (waste cleanup)

Medications

Remember that cats, especially, can’t take a lot of human or dog medications. Those need to be sourced and stocked separately. There are, however, a lot of overlaps between species, fish to humans, pigs to dogs.

We have to research any meds our animals are on or can be anticipated to be on, just like with humans. Contraindication can delay recovery and set animals back if we combine the wrong things, or push them at the wrong intervals. Just like human meds, we’ll want to stock up on prescriptions and OTC drugs our animals have used in the past, or that we can anticipated them needing in the future.

Flea and tick preventatives, dewormers, heartworm preventative, mange washes, lice and flea dips, and ear cleaners are just a few of the things we might consider stocking up on.

Prepping for Furry Friends

There’s a lot to think about with our family disaster plans, big and small. Figuring out how we’re going to take care of our critters – pets or livestock or working animals – just adds to the headache. The moisture content in animal feeds and the expense of some types of feeds can make it seem impossible at first, but with some twitches, we can use standard, inexpensive storage foods to keep the animals fat and happy. There are also things like a water plan and sport umbrellas or mesh screens that will not only make us and animals happier, they can help reduce diseases, illness and heat stroke. It takes a little forethought, be we can absolutely prepare to keep our animals in personal crises or nation-altering events.

The post Prepping for Our Furry Friends – Stuff for Spot appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

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