Sunday Story...What's Next?

So here are at about day 27 of the double dog dare 30 day Paleo challenge. Many of you have knocked this thing out of the park! And some of you have fallen a bit off the wagon. No matter…everyone I have talked to has seen the benefits of eating this way:
Feeling better

More energy

Losing sizes

Losing weight

Getting off meds (with a physician’s assistance of course!)

Sleeping better

Improved skin, hair, and nails

Having fun with food and family

I am sure many of you could add to this list from your own experience.

And there have been some challenges:
Discouraged that the scale didn’t reflect weight loss

Lower energy levels in the first couple weeks

Other people tempting and challenging the reasons behind eating this way

That last one really chaps my hide by the way. If I was quitting smoking would my friends and colleagues wave a cigarette in front of my face and ask if wanted one? If I was quitting alcohol because I had an addiction would they bring a bottle of Jack Daniels to my desk and a couple of shot glasses and pour it out? Of course not. Both of those things would be callous and inhumane. Yet I heard from a number of people who had people bringing cookies and doughnuts and other “forbidden” foods to their desks and begging pleading with them to join in. Congratulations to those of you who stood your ground. If you didn’t, I understand and I hope you got right back on the horse after falling off. It is hard and I understand.

There are a couple reasons people do this sort of thing:

The first would be ignorance. They just don’t understand the effect that food has in their body. They have been brainwashed by the government, the medical community, big food, and big pharma into their current set of beliefs. Getting them to give up those beliefs isn’t easy. They also believe that just a taste or “just one” isn’t going to kill you. They are right. It isn’t that one, just like it isn’t the first cigarette; it’s a life time of cigarettes and a lifetime of sugar that is killing you. I have compassion for people in this state of ignorance and do my best to gently educate and be the kind of example that will inspire them to get more information.

The second reason is much more insidious…the fear of change. Everyone is afraid of change. It is unknown and you may not know what is going to happen if you do change. This is true everywhere in life, from shifting your relationship, to changing how you eat, to going back to school. A lot of people are like crabs in a bucket though…as one tries to climb out the other crabs grab that on and pull it back into the bucket. Misery loves company. Kick those crabs back to the bottom of the bucket and hang out with the crabs who have already escaped from the average and the mundane.

One of the biggest success stories comes from Peter who had a recent check up with his physician. Now, Peter has been Paleo for a while now. And he got on board seriously maybe 6 or 8 months ago after his Doc said it was the way he should be eating. And this is a medical doctor by the way. His numbers are all down and inside normal tolerances; he is off all the meds he was on before starting the diet. He has lost weight, his physical appearance is up, his ability to move easier has improved and his skiing has become more fluid and better.

So what’s next? What happens after the 30 days is over? It is up to you. Here is the first thing…PARTY!!!! On Saturday February 2nd we will have the Challenge Paleo Potluck at 5PM at the studio. Bring your favorite Paleo dish to share. We need tables, chairs, dishes and food. And yes Dani, we will have wine! My warmest congratulations to all of you who hit the road on this journey, no matter how you did you at least tried. Bring the kids, bring the non-compliant other half and lets have some fun. We will talk story, swap recipes and just have a Paleo pig out!

I will announce the next challenge at this time too!

No matter what, if you decide to “ease” off I suggest you introduce the “forbidden foods” one at a time so you know how your body reacts. In other words, if you eat dairy and grains and legumes all at one sitting you won’t know which one is OK for you. Try some cheese and see what happens, or maybe a little yogurt, or some commercial pancakes or whatever your thing might be. If you go crazy (Sunday is the Super bowl after all!) you may be really upset with yourself hours later!

I am proud of anyone who gave this a shot. You are trying to get healthy in the face of a culture that has lost its connection with healthy food and healthy eating habits. Congratulations! And I will see every one of you on Saturday…even if you didn’t make the plunge you are welcome to join us and see what the fuss is all about and eat some really great food too!

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

Follow me at:
Twitter --- http://m.twitter.com/jmariotti
FaceBook --- John Mariotti
Blog Spots…John Mariotti
http://sunday-stories.blogspot.com/

Sunday Story...Weigh No More

I have had several conversations lately about weight…about what a healthy weight is or whether or not you are losing weight, or losing enough weight, or whatever. It is time to get off that bus. What you weigh is not important. The number that pops up on the scale is just a number. It has absolutely no meaning until you assign it meaning. 125#, 150#, 200# just don’t matter. Here is what matters:

YOUR HEALTH

The only thing that matters is your health. I see skinny people who are both healthy and unhealthy. I see big people who are health and unhealthy. If I am standing next to someone who weighs the same as I do it doesn’t necessarily follow that one of us is healthy and the other isn’t.

If your nutrition is dialed in according to your activity level, age, and physical capabilities then your weight will take care of itself. If you change your eating habits, if you eat the right portions of food, if you eat food that serves your health not your dis-ease, then your weight will right itself.

The deal is simple…most people eat too much (doesn’t matter if it is good or not too much is too much), most people eat the wrong food, and most people have sick or addicted food patterns that are inhibiting their health. It is not that they weigh too much (or too little) it is that their weight does not serve their health.

So, the questions to ask yourself are these.
How do you feel when:
You get up (in the morning or from the chair)?
You finish eating (a meal, or a snack or a feast)?
You go to the bathroom (we all do it)?
You exercise (I mean really exercise hard enough to drip sweat and think you might pass out or something)?
You need to walk or run in a hurry (catching a plane or trying to be on time)?
You get undressed and look in the mirror (be honest, take a good hard look all the way around)?
You go to the Doctor (and get weighed in public, poked and prodded)?
You look down at your feet (you can see them)?
You compare yourself to the you of a few years ago (are you better off now than you were 4 years ago)?

Stop worrying about what you weigh. Worry about how your clothes fit…are you getting into smaller sizes? Worry about how you are moving…are you moving easier, with less pain, stronger and faster? Worry about your health markers…is your blood pressure down, your cholesterol in a healthy range, you pulse slower? Worry about how you feel in your body after you eat…are you comfortable or bloated, is your mind clear or cloudy, are you energized or tired? These are the real questions, not whether you weigh 120# or 125#.

So step away from the scale and Weigh no more. Buy new clothes because the old ones don’t fit anymore. Feel energized and happier because the food you are eating is fueling your body and mind they way they were meant to be fed. Workout and play with joy and abandon. Have fun eating!

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

Follow me at:
Twitter --- http://m.twitter.com/jmariotti
FaceBook --- John Mariotti
Blog Spots…John Mariotti
http://sunday-stories.blogspot.com/

Sunday Story…Past Paleo

The other day, one of my students, Elianna (age 6), asked me if I ate candy when I was kid and followed it up by asking if I still liked candy and why didn’t I eat it. The answers are pretty simple…Yes I ate candy when I was a kid, and yes, I still like candy but I don’t eat it because it isn’t good for me and it doesn’t help me do what I want to do in my life. I think this may have been a little hard for her 6 year old brain to get around but she tried.

Let’s be honest…for many of us there is nothing that says home like the smell of fresh baked bread. All of us have grown up with certain memories that are ingrained in our psyches conjuring up memories of happiness, contentedness or comfort and a lot of this has to do with food…the taste, the smell, the texture all combine to trigger those feelings. But that doesn’t mean that I should continue to eat them. When I walk through the Costco bakery on Wednesday morning and the cinnamon rolls are baking….mmmm sugar and cinnamon, yeasty and warm and I remember. Then I also remember what is going to happen if ingest that cinnamon roll today…the bloating, the sluggishness, the intestinal upset, the kick of insulin and the resultant crash. And that’s the short term reaction!

Many of you have taken the 30 day challenge to eliminate sugar, grain, dairy, legumes, and processed food (anything in a box or a can, or a bottle) from your diet. If you haven’t done it yet, you should. In so many of us those substances are toxic to our bodies and we don’t even know it. Eliminating those things from your diet will give you a baseline to find out what your system will and will not tolerate. Some of you may be able to eat some dairy or some non-wheat grain, or legumes without reaction. Wheat, high fructose corn syrup and other sugars, and industrial seed oils appear to be the leading causes of dietary disease (read 90% of disease here). These things do not belong in the diet of any human.

Your diet should really be simple and maybe we should stop labeling it “Paleo”. Eat natural food in other words…whole foods free of toxins, foods that are nutrient dense, and food designed by nature not man. That description could lend itself to a lot of interpretation so let’s drill it down a bit more…animal meat and fat (sustainably and humanely raised), vegetables (both starch and non-starchy), a little bit of fruit, seeds and nuts (and the resultant butters and such), fermented foods (for gut health). Gee that sounds a lot like what we have been talking about all along…eat meat and vegetables, seeds and nuts, some starch and a little fruit in quantities designed to support exercise but not fat storage. For lack of a better word I guess we can keep calling it paleo.

The fact is this: What I want you to do is find out what the optimal food is for your body…the optimal food that fuels your activity levels…the food that has you feeling great all the time…that has your hair lustrous and shiny, your nails healthy and growing, your skin luminous and free of flaking and scaling, your teeth strong…that keeps you free of infection and disease…that feeds your brain and has you thinking clearly.

Eliminate grains, sugars, legumes, dairy and processed food from your diet for 30 days. Just 30 day, that is all I am asking. There is no magic pill on this subject…cut the crap and the toxins out and then try again in 30 days and see what happens. You may be able to eat a little cheese (I can’t) or maybe some non-gluten grains (I can’t) and perform well. And that is the bottom line…what you eat affects how you perform in the world, how you think, how you feel and who you are.

So, no, Elianna, I don’t eat candy anymore. That doesn’t mean I don’t like it…it just means that I don’t like what it does to my body. You get to decide what it does to yours.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

Follow me at:
Twitter --- http://m.twitter.com/jmariotti
FaceBook --- John Mariotti
Blog Spots…John Mariotti
http://sunday-stories.blogspot.com/

Sunday Story…Paleo Pitfalls

You made the plunge and decided to go all in on the dare. Or maybe you are just dipping your toe in to find out how the water is. This is a life style folks, not a diet. This is a transition into an integrated holistic way of eating that dovetail with an integrated and holistic way of life. This article is here to help you avoid some of the potholes, the bumps in the road, if you will, along your journey to whole food whole health.

1. It Isn’t Fun
You eat the same thing day in and day out, the same bacon and eggs for breakfast every day, the same salad with tuna for lunch and the same chicken breast and steamed broccoli for dinner. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO…kill me now, please. This is so boring I want to order some horrible food myself. The kitchen is my favorite room in the house. It’s warm, it smells good and really magical things happen in there. There is a huge amount of meats, vegetables, spices, and herbs for you to explore and enjoy in this transition. You can be the Indiana Jones of your kitchen, searching for undiscovered treasures or maybe on the Star Trek voyage…going where no culinary explorer has ever gone before. Figure out what it is going to take to make it fun and go there.

2. Eating too much fruit
Sugar is sugar and fruit is full of sugar. We are trying to break this addiction and loading up on 36 bananas a day won’t help you do that…just like smokers with the nicotine patch it is harder than just suffering through the 4-14 days of misery as you break free of your addiction. Sugar will cause your insulin to go up and put you in a fat storing mode and that is not where you want to be. We want to manage our insulin by managing our blood sugar. So stick to apples, grapes and berries (mmmmm berries) that kick the insulin less and eat them with protein and fat to blunt some of the insulin response. I know these may violate our local food rules but where do you think those bananas are coming from?

3. You didn’t clean out the Pantry
Imagine for a moment…its late and you are a little snacky and your open up the pantry and the only thing that you can see is the box of sugar crisps waaay in the back or the Oreos you thought you hid from yourself and well, no one is looking and just one won’t hurt so you reach for it and wake up from your sugar induced coma 10 minutes later and the box is gone and you are sitting at the kitchen table like a drunk sitting at the curb at 5AM wondering what happened to you. Don’t be this person. Get rid of all of it…all the boxes, all the temptations, all the bogus marketing messages designed to addict and lure you into ill health. Out with the old and in with the new…will power is a limited commodity and if it isn’t in your face it won’t be in your face!

4. You Aren't Eating Enough Fat Fat is your friend. Eating Fat won’t make you Fat. Fat is where a lot of taste in the food comes from. We have been sold a bill of goods by the various industries that make their profits from our poor health and eating habits. Coconut Oil, Ghee (clarified butter), Butter, Olives, Avocados, Olive Oil, and Palm oil are your friends. They will help with taste and they will give you the requisite calories and energy to get through the day. Up until now you have been a sugar burner and now we want to be a fat burner. This shift requires you to fuel up with fat. Guess what happens when I burn fat for fuel? My body starts looking for more fat to burn…and guess where it can find lots of fat for fuel? C’mon you know where it is. Eat fat and get fit!

5. Sleep Deprivation and Stress You aren’t sleeping enough. This creates a resistance to insulin (again) and puts you in the fat storing position. In addition too much stress will create the same insulin resistance and whoop there it is (again). Not enough sleep and too much stress will make you sick. You could have the perfect diet and if either of those things are happening you are going to be in trouble. Sleep 8-10 hours a night or as much as you can without getting fired or a divorce. Meditate or learn to manage stress in a healthy way—exercise, shooting practice, petting the cat whatever but figure it out!

6. Peer Pressure We just finished the holidays. How many times did you hear…”one bite won’t kill you,” or “just live a little” or “you poor thing you should enjoy yourself once in a while?” This one really ticks me off. If I was allergic to peanuts that one bite might kill me. If I have celiac disease that commercial chocolate chip might send me to the emergency room. If I am addicted to sugar (I am by the way) then that one bit of fudge could send me on a downward spiral that may take months to snap out of, like a heroin addict who keeps going down the same road. People are not going to understand. They are well meaning but they just don’t get it. You should not feel deprived eating this way. You should be well fed. You should not be hungry. Try not to be mean to the ill informed but understand this is fear raising its ugly head trying to get you to resist the change. You get to eat bacon and butter and whole eggs and prepare really good food with love and care. Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines can’t say that…there is no love in the ingredient list on a box of SAD (Standard American Diet) CRAP (Calorie Rich And Pathetic).

7. Not Eating Enough Just do it. Eat lots of different kinds and colors of food. You should never be hungry or worried about eating too much. Have more green stuff. Listen to what your body is telling you. Chew your food a lot and enjoy every chomp. Eat slowly and mindfully. Feel the energy of the universe coursing into your body as you eat. This is sustainable, this is the way your Paleolithic ancestors ate…in touch with their bodies, in touch with the natural world and grateful for all the gifts.

8. Weighing Yourself Step away from the scale. Your self image and self worth are not determined by a number on the scale. How do you feel? How are your clothes fitting, how well are you moving, how do you look (naked or not)? The number on the scale will take care of itself. When you get on the scale everyday you start criticizing and feeling fearful that something isn’t right. Eating this way will right the ship. It will take time but your body will achieve the stasis it should achieve if you just feed it right. Trust your body, trust nature, trust that fueling yourself, eliminating stress, sleeping well and moving are working in your human organism and you will find the optimum health you rightfully deserve.

Paleo is just a word we are using to describe a healthy way of eating, moving and being. It really is subject to interpretation and scale. By eliminating sugars grain and dairy we are eliminating the primary culprits in continued poor health. When we get off those trains our bodies will heal and right themselves. I know it has worked for me and many others. It will work for you too.



Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

Follow me at:
Twitter --- http://m.twitter.com/jmariotti
FaceBook --- John Mariotti
Blog Spots…John Mariotti
http://sunday-stories.blogspot.com/