Episode 4: Brief History of the Paleo Diet

Episode 3: 60 Second Paleo

Episode 3 of 60 Second Paleo! Drunk Holiday Edition!
Slowly figuring out this whole audio quality thing, work in progress.

Transcript:

This is 60 Second Paleo, I'm Roman. Today I want to talk about alcohol. Whether or not alcohol is actually paleo is debatable as there is some evidence we've had a long history with alcohol. It actually lowers your blood sugar, it's broken down by the liver into toxins and eventually into co2 and water. Now, the hangover is caused by the toxins and there are some steps you can take to mitigate the hangovers. One way is to just drink better kinds of alcohol in general. Beers generally the worst, lagers. Vokda, tequila, whiskey and gin are some of the better choices. You can take vitamin b1, alpha lipoic acid. You can take some vitamin C. Glutathione, either in the oral form or through NAC. You can also take some activated charcoal once you're done drinking. That's your 60 seconds for today, happy holidays thanks for listening.

Episode 1: 60 Second Paleo

First of many 60 seconds of Paleo!
I'll also be doing a Q&A so feel free to send your burning questions, comments, love, primal hate, why you feel veganism is better or anything to buidingbetterquestions@gmail.com

This is 60 Second Paleo, I'm Roman. Today I want to talk about how, if you've just started a paleo diet, and you're not getting the results you're looking for, you should really look into where you're sourcing your beef from. Hopefully you are eating beef. Compared to grain fed, grass fed has a lot of benefits within the saturated fat. It has more omega 3 fatty acids. Which is important for nerve tissue, it will help with strees and control with metabolic processes. It will also help with cortisol by improving your ratio of omega 3 to 6. It also has more CLA which is a trans fat, one of the few good ones, that improves brain function. It'll help with weight loss and weight regulation and it's been shown to reduce your risk of cancer. It also more vitamins, both water and fat soluble. More anti oxidants and trace minerals. And that's your 60 seconds for today, peace!

Pros and Cons of Eating Paleo

While paleo is one of the most effective ways of eating for many reasons, anybody who says there isn't any downsides are diluting themselves.

Here's a basic chart of the common pros and cons:

Cons (things that you might experience when going on the Paleo diet)

Pros (the good stuff that happens to most people on the Paleo diet and might also happen to you!)

Missing foods (grains, sugar, dairy, soy, peanut, processed foods, artificial sweetener, alcohol) Asking more questions about ingredients in a dish and requesting substitutions when eating out Changing your eating habits Possibly experiencing some side effects at the beginning (fatigue, cravings, headache, constipation, bloating…) Having people asking questions when you say “no” to some food at family gatherings or at work Meeting with your doctor to discuss things (especially if you have a medical condition or take prescribed medications)

Reducing your cravings controlling your sweet tooth Stabilizing your blood sugars and energy levels Losing weight (if needed) Getting healthier ↓ triglycerides ­↑ HDL cholesterol ↓ A1C & ↓ blood sugars ↓ blood pressure Controlling your autoimmune condition(Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, celiac disease, vitiligo…) Improving your gastrointestinal health (IBS, GERD, intolerances…) Having such good results that your friends, colleagues and family ask you how you did it! Spending less time grocery shopping (no need to read labels when you buy real, unprocessed food!)

More information available at: http://www.eat-real-food-paleodietitian.com

Walking My Talk

Everything I recommend I've done and had positive results with personally. Although my experiments and quantified self research is not totally about physical things and body improvements, being able to have the body work as well as possible opens the door to endless possibilities. We now know the fairly obvious which is that the mind and body are connected.

Before:

After:  

Decided to enter a "Body Transformation" bodybuilding competition to further quantify my results. Came in 3rd, not bad considering I've heard the trick of the trade is to become grossly out of shape on purpose then use the bodies muscle memory and tendency to want to return to it's old state which is the exact opposite of what hinders so many people that try to lose weight. Considered this my "Geek to Freak" (semi-inside joke). Not quite as stylish nowadays (ha) and eat paleo but I'll do a run through on what I did to achieve these results using the 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle.

Belly fat - high cortisol - low inflammation minimally processed (low-carb) diet
Muscle gain:

1. weight lifting (lift heavy things) - 5/5 technique, five seconds up, five seconds down one set to failure, three minute rest between sets
2. Increase protein - protein from whole foods (best results) and whey/hemp shakes (for convenience)
3. Bench press, bent over row, bicep curl, palm-up wrist curls, pull ups three times a weeks. High load, high intensity
4. 1/2 mile run daily for tone and cardiovascular benefits

Diet and supplementation overview:

1. 175g protein, cycled off for one day per week
2. 2,000IU Vitamin D
3. 2,000IU Calcium
4. Optimum men multivitamin
5. 300mg alpha-lipoic acid morning and after carb meals
6. 900mg omega 3 fish oil

There are things I would now change but for the most parts results don't lie. In my teenage years had spent endless hours lifting weights and pounding protein shakes with limited results. Having a game plan with end goals and quantifiable variables cannot be underestimated.

Tooth Decay and Self Repair

This is a subject that's really close to my heart, about equally close to my brain also (because it's my teeth haa). My experience is that at one point I had ten cavities, knowing absolutely nothing (except that I didn't want mercury in my mouth) I went and got six composite fillings. I didn't have dental insurance at the time so after that I stopped and it happened to be the same time that I was experimenting with the paleo diet. End of this story is it may sound crazy (I don't believe this idea has become very "main stream") but I currently have no cavities, my enamel is quite strong compared to being very sensitive to things like cold, and not only that also some of my six fillings are coming out on their own with little remaining holes (dentists drill a large hole in your tooth before placing the filling)
Now let's go through my experiments and others so you can duplicate my results.

First thing I did was research, no matter how crazy it seemed, if it was inexpensive and I didn't think it would cause permanent damage I'd look into it. The things that I found the most effective are:

• Vitamin K (or even better K2)
• Vitamin D (I tend to not use or endorse pasteurized dairy even if it's tolerated, supplementation is best)
• Magnesium (favorite way for this is epsom salt baths, which has many benefits)
• Vitamin E (NOT from grains, I'll explain more in another post)
• Vitamin A (cod oil is great for this and also has D, EPA, DHA)
• Get as close to completely cutting grains and simply sugars as possible (if you can't live without them go back to eating as you please after the majority of cavities/decay is gone)
• Brush and swish mouth with a low grad (no higher than 3%) hydrogen peroxide (can also use fluoride if you wish to, I couldn't quantify any difference)
• Have as little processed (industrially processed that is) food and additives as possible
• As these vitamins are fat soluble make sure you're getting enough fat when taking these in supplement form (I recommend grass fed butter and grass fed beef or coconut oil. If that's not available wild caught low mercury sea food i.e. salmon or extra virgin olive oil)

That's the overview and I had a lot of success with it. Hesitate to say the doses of the supplements but to be frank to get these benefits you need supplements from good quality sources and I was taking a lot more than the "DV%". Check out Dave Aspreys article on supplements for a general idea on amounts of the above and adjust as necessary: Upgrade Your Energy Supply: Optimize Your Supplements

On my research journey I read a good article with more detail on dental practice and the theories of tooth decay: Natural Tooth Cure for Curing Cavities and Preventing Root Canals