Sunday, January 26, 2020

My current way of Eating

                                                       Animal Based Nutrition Plan

      I'm calling my Latest Way of Eating (WOE), "Animal Based Nutrition Plan". The base of my WOE is animal flesh. I'm eating enough animal flesh to get 1 to 2 grams of protein per pound of my body weight. I weigh between 170lbs and 175lbs depending on the day. So I'm trying to get between 170 to 200 grams of protein a day from animal flesh. In addition to the animal flesh I'm consuming dairy products in the way of milk and cheese. I also add in some berries or fruit. This is how I eat Monday through Friday. On Saturday evenings and Sunday evenings I eat whatever the family is having. Most Saturday evenings we have Mexican food. I eat some chips, guacamole, and queso. My entry is something with a lot of meat. On Sundays I have whatever my Mom is cooking. You could say I have 2 cheat meals a week. I eat 3 meals a day Monday through Friday and on the weekend I usually only eat 2 meals.


 




















                    So the above pie chart is sort of a representation of how I eat.

This seems to be working very well for me. I'm happy with the way I look, feel, and perform.

Saturday, January 25, 2020

Carnivore is What Paleo Was Meant to Be.


I've gotten back to eating a more Paleo/Primal Nutrition Plan. Here are my thoughts.

      Carnivore is what Paleo/Primal started out as and it should have stayed that way. We should have listened to the message from "The Perfect Human Diet" by C.J. Hunt. But we didn't. We went off track by several ideas that came into the Paleo movement. We got caught up in trying to make it easy and include more people. We got shamed by society for acting like cavemen and women. But now carnivore has helped bring us back to our dietary heritage. We can once again proudly display our steaks, roast, and host of meats while we dance around our campfires. Well maybe our grills, air fryers, and ovens
      There were several ideas that came into the Paleo sphere that changed it. People brought their plant baggage with them into the Paleo diet. Others brought their high fat beliefs. And then there was the scientist and bio-hackers. All of these different ideas splintered the Paleo diet and pulled people away from the core idea of the Paleo, "Eat a lot of meat".Paleo accepted in all the people who were sick and over weight that had failed to get results from other ways of eating.
       The plant based group was willing to accept the idea that they needed to add some animal protein to their diet, but they clung to their old idea that plants were more important to health than meat. They wanted to keep fruits and vegetables at the core of their way of eating. All their years of hearing that we have to be plant based just couldn't be dropped. So they argued the fact that we just had to have our fruits and vegetables. They not only wanted to have fruits and vegetables but they wanted their properly prepared safe starches. They argued for those as well.
      The high fat people wanted to keep fat and alternative low carb food and treats in their Paleo plan. The benefits of fats were elevated about the need for protein. They got everyone worried about their blood glucose level and ketones. Everyone started started chasing their blood glucose and ketones numbers. All while ignoring their calories and body weight on the scales. They forgot about Robb Wolf's driving principle, "How do you look, feel, and perform". People were sitting around with butter in their pockets and wondering why they weren't seeing the results they wanted.
      It is hard to blamed the plant-based and fat-based people for clinging to their old ideas because the scientist were there to back them up. The doctors, nutritionist, dietitian, and bio-hackers were there in increasing numbers to lay out the data and research behind their dietary strategies. Once again we started tracking all sorts of numbers and adding supplements to help us see the results we wanted. We got all wrapped up in our microbiome, heart variability, and other bio-markers. Instead of looking in the mirror and asking ourselves how we looked, felt, and were performing, we looked outside ourselves to the data.
I never bought into the high fat ideas, it just didn't make sense to me. Also I saw that the ones that were preaching the high fat doctrine were the ones that looked the worst. I also do not like artificial sweeteners nor do I believe that they are good for you.
      But I did believe that plants were good for us. I've had in drilled in my head for years. I've preached it myself. So I went the way of the plant-based Paleo diet. I started increasing my plant consumption and lowering my animal products. I started eating more fruits, vegetables, and safe starches. I got to were I was only eating animal products once a day and the rest of my meals were plant-based.
      After 3 years of eating less and less animal foods and more plant-bases foods the wheels started falling off of my wagon. I started looking, feeling and performing worst than ever. Lucky about this time Dr. Shawn Baker and the Petersons started popping up on podcast toting the virtues of a carnivorous diet. They really weren't talking about anything new. Most of the ideas they were talking about were things we had talked about early in the Paleo movement. Ancient man eating a more carnivorous diet than hyenas, Vilhjalmur Stefansson and his time with the Eskimos, and how poisonous plants were to humans. We had been over the anti-nutrients time and time again, but some scientist was always there to argue about the benefits of plants.
      But Jordan and Mikla Peterson's message was one that caught people's attention for some reason. People started getting carnivore curious. They weren't setting out to start a movement, but it happened. Jordan just laid out what was working for them and admitted he didn't know why it was working but they were getting better. He said he didn't know if it would work for anyone else but they might give it a try.
      Dr. Baker's approach is a different. Eat meat and drink water until you feel better. All the nutrition science is biased and not reliable. He is unapologetic and stands his ground. Keep it simple and see the benefits. We should have been unapologetic in the Paleo movement and kept our way of eating; animal protein based. We should not have let our need to include more people or our need for scientific proof sway us from our core belief, eating animals made us human and its the proper human diet.
      I'm looking, feeling, and performing much better now that I have returned to eating animal products at the core of my diet. I feel like I've returned to the true Paleo/Primal way of eating.