The Primal Blueprint (52 page)

Authors: Mark Sisson

BOOK: The Primal Blueprint

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If you make it through this book and then do nothing to diverge from the path of the typical modern human, it’s quite likely you will still lead a reasonably happy, productive, and comparatively healthy life. We’ve certainly come a long way in the last few hundred years with regard to health and enjoyment of life. As you read this, folks are working hard to develop new drugs and medical advancements intended to alleviate the devastating impact of today’s prevalent diseases, most of which are due to lifestyle. Granted, this “indulging in modern comforts and benefiting from medical advancements” is a bit far removed from the
Citius, Altius, Fortius
component of our genome for my taste. But again, I’m merely presenting choices to you. There is no right or wrong answer. If you are drawn to a life of inactivity, big-screen TVs, lavish desserts, and microwaveable meals, we can still be friends. But you can bet I’ll bend your ear now and then when the opportunity presents itself!

Furthermore, I’m sometimes more concerned about the adverse effects of fanaticism than I am about mediocrity, as I mention with my own endurance background and the Conventional Wisdom about Chronic Cardio. For example, if you simply cannot do without dietary indulgences that you believe greatly enhance your enjoyment of life, you can take solace in Deepak Chopra’s commentary about the dietary habits of centenarians across the globe. Chopra explains that a
psychologically pleasing
diet contributes in a quantifiable and very meaningful way to their overall state of health, even if their daily pipe or other indulgence is clearly “unhealthy.” Now that you are clear that the choice is yours, we can proceed to the next section about taking action!

“
When it comes to eating right and exercising, there is no “I’ll start tomorrow.” Tomorrow is disease
.

—
V. L. Allineare
”

Taking Action

Perhaps you are concerned about the hassles of the new eating guidelines and restrictions, whether they’re too extreme or whether you have the ability to stick to them in the long term. Don’t get tripped up by the common mistake of thinking you have to plunge, all-or-nothing style, off a towering cliff into the
Primal Blueprint
world. It goes without saying that the amenities of modern life are substantial and that you deserve to enjoy them. You can bet that Grok himself would have indulged in a big slice of the Cheesecake Factory’s namesake dessert or settled into his seat at the Regal Cineplex to enjoy some big-screen entertainment (he would have particularly enjoyed
Crocodile Dundee
, eh, mate?). When it comes to getting in shape, you don’t need to plunk down for an expensive gym membership if that’s not your thing. All you need is an open road or athletic field to get a simple, fun, intense Primal workout.

The foods of the
Primal Blueprint
diet are within easy reach virtually anywhere on the civilized globe, including many outstanding Internet resources for those in remote areas or lacking good local options. You can also plant some seeds and grow your own food. In fact, you may be minimizing or getting rid of more stuff than you need to acquire to get Primal, such as clearing your cupboard of offensive processed foods, reducing your total hours of exercise in favor of a more focused and balanced program, eliminating nonessential prescription and over-the-counter medications from your medicine cabinet, and powering down your alarm clock, computer, or BlackBerry in favor of a less stressful, more natural existence. Minimizing might also extend to reconsidering expensive consumer purchases—even leisure items, such as that new boat or tropical vacation—that require more working time and energy to pay for. Perhaps the following tips will make your transition a bit more manageable—and more inviting, especially if you’re a “slowly slip your way into the pool” type of person.

“
You may be minimizing or getting rid of more stuff than you need to acquire to get Primal, such as clearing your cupboard of offensive processed foods, and reducing your total hours of exercise in favor of a more focused and balanced program
.”

Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day:
Not everyone needs or wants to ease into it, but it’s a viable option to avoid being overwhelmed by new diet, exercise, and lifestyle practices. On the other hand, if you’re up for diving in, particularly if you’re facing a major health complication (e.g., arthritis, diabetes, or obesity), a fast and furious beginning can reap major health benefits quickly and even be psychologically more comfortable to your personality than a gradual approach.

For some aspects of the
Primal Blueprint
, such as the reduction in dietary carbohydrates, slow and steady may have definite benefits. If you feel sluggish or foggy cutting back on carbs (particularly if you’ve been eating 400 or more grams a day, like many), take your time cutting these foods back and even hold steady at 150 grams per day for a while if needed. Simply eliminating grains will get you most of the way there. Use your time in this holding pattern to ramp up efforts toward other lifestyle changes. If you find you’re having a hard time adequately recovering from strength training or sprint workouts, reduce their frequency and severity and allow your body to adapt over a more comfortable time frame. Progress is rarely a smooth, uninterrupted trajectory for anyone. The point is to do what’s necessary to keep your general momentum and motivation going.

Divide and Conquer:
Sometimes it’s easier to tackle one aspect of a project (or a lifestyle) at a time than to attend to all of them at once. If you’re trying to cut carbs and kick a nasty caffeine habit, it might behoove you to take on one at a time or at least take one slowly and focus on the other. Although all the elements of the
Primal Blueprint
work together (and actually make other efforts easier), there’s nothing wrong with homing in on a few select areas first. Make a commitment to total health, put yourself in the center, but take on only what you feel is manageable for now. If you keep the rest in sight, chances are you’ll begin gravitating toward those other changes anyway. Healthy choices have a way of begetting other healthy choices.

Track Your Day-to-Day Practices and Progress:
Keep a free-form food, exercise, and stress management journal. Input your food intake diary into an online macronutrient calculator, such as the free tools offered at
FitDay.com
and
TheDailyPlate.com
. In addition to documenting the actual foods and exercises themselves, make some observational notes on how you feel, what you are able to accomplish, and where you feel challenged. Looking back on your notes will give you a sense of how far you’ve come. Your notes can also serve as a reminder of how you made it through challenges in the past. Remember that the
Primal Blueprint
isn’t about temporary fixes or fad gimmicks. Overarching lifestyle change takes time, care, and an ever-evolving commitment to align your behavior with your genes and goals for health, fitness, and fun.

“I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed.

—
George Carlin
”

Around the World (or at Least to Dallas and Back) in 72 Hours

My
MarksDailyApple.com
posts describing my personal experiences, daily diet, and exercise and lifestyle practices tend to elicit the most commentary and interest. I’m often asked to reveal my “secrets” to interested readers. The truth is, I’m short on secrets but big on guidelines and practical tips that will help you successfully navigate the particulars of your daily life, including the innumerable challenges to being Primal that we face in the modern world. Because the
Primal Blueprint
is a blueprint and not a regimen, what I do has less relevance to your success than
what you like to do
. That said, I hope my real-life experiences give you some perspective that I’m a regular guy trying to raise a family, make a living, achieve peak health and fitness levels, forage Primal foods in a modern world, and, most of all, enjoy the heck out of my life.

The exercise of keeping an accurate journal for 72 hours to produce this sidebar helped me realize that even the times when I slip from optimum are no big deal. When “stuff happens” to take you off track, it’s a great opportunity to develop your “go with the flow” skills, staying positive and relaxed instead of stressed. Consider the following example from my Tuesday journal where my son called me, begging for a ride to the valley for a social opportunity while I was en route to the gym for a precious final workout before a business trip. My 30 minutes of captive teen audience time in the car was a far more valuable experience than yet another workout.

Furthermore, when I was driving home after dropping Kyle off, I realized that the concept of
hormone manipulation
supersedes the need to cover all your bases on food choices and workout goals every day. When you direct insulin, glucagon, cortisol, testosterone, growth hormone, and other agents in the correct pathways by following the
Primal Blueprint
, you can easily handle the unexpected because you have built a healthy, efficient foundation. A little sugar here, a few missed workouts there, or an occasional deficient sleep night can be effortlessly righted with, respectively, low-carb follow-up meals, a maximum-intensity workout, and a power nap! Likely you can attest to the phenomenon of returning from an extended exercise absence (due to illness, vacation, or whatever) and picking up right where you left off—or performing even better, thanks to the rest.

The
Primal Blueprint
message that you can achieve robust health and ideal body composition without obsessive calorie restriction or exhausting exercise is the best takeaway lesson I can offer from sharing my routine. I regulate my carb intake naturally by simply avoiding sugars, grains, and other processed foods. It’s no trouble, because by all measures I enjoy a satisfying—you could even say indulgent—diet. I engage in an average of a few brief, intense exercise sessions per week that deliver the precise signals my body needs to stay strong and lean, with minimal time commitment. I also have occasional extended stretches where I do embarrassingly little—and nothing bad happens! And then there are weeks when my body and mind are geared up to exercise many consecutive days in a row—when I am enjoying every minute of being in the gym, sprinting on the beach, or hiking the trails.

I follow the
Primal Blueprint
lifestyle laws naturally, thanks to a lifelong appreciation of the outdoors, a stimulating career, and a positive attitude—one that I’ve worked hard to cultivate over the years. I’ve seen the alternatives and traveled a long, long way down that marathon road to nowhere—the vicious cycle of a carb-based, sugar-burning, fat-storage diet, the struggle-and-suffer approach to fitness goals and the inevitable anxiety and disappointment that comes from such a tenuous approach. Here then are my journal entries for a three-day stretch from January 2009, featuring a business trip to Dallas bookended by typical weekdays at home in Malibu.

Tuesday—Travel Day

6:30 a.m.:
Wake up and drink large cup of strong coffee with heavy whipping cream. Read paper (almost finish
LA Times
crossword puzzle—Law #10, natch!). Move to desk and answer e-mails, blog, and pack for afternoon flight to Dallas.

10:15 a.m.:
Down protein shake (water, a banana, and 1.5 scoops of Responsibly Slim protein powder). Head to the gym for quick workout.

10:30 a.m.:
En route to gym, son Kyle calls my cell, begging for a ride to the valley (gotta love winter break!). Return home, pick up Kyle.

11:30 a.m.:
Return from valley trip with no time for workout or lunch. Depart for LAX and 2:00 p.m. flight to Dallas. Can you say, “Been there, done that?” I’ve flown this route 150+ times in the last 10 years. Destination: a suburban television studio (I’ve never once been to downtown Dallas; I hear it’s nice) to tape regular appearances on my friend Doug Kaufmann’s show—
Know the Cause
—a nationally distributed daily cable talk show on health and nutrition.

8:00 p.m.:
(6:00 p.m. PST): Check into hotel, enjoy leisurely dinner at Outback Steak-house (flank steak with asparagus and red wine—hold the potato).

11:30 p.m.:
Time change contributes to late bedtime. Elapsed time stuck in metal boxes today = about six hours (counting drive to and from valley, to airport—featuring traffic jam on Pacific Coast Hwy—shuttle bus rides, and three-hour flight).

Tuesday Micronutrient Calculations

Coffee, heavy whipping cream

Protein shake

Granny Smith apple

Flank steak (6 ounces), asparagus, red wine

FitDay.com
Analysis

Total Calories: 774

Protein: 88 grams, 352 calories (41 percent)

Carbs: 56 grams, 224 calories (24 percent)

Fat: 22 grams, 198 calories (22 percent)

Wednesday—Dallas Day

7:00 a.m.:
Wake-up call comes after not sleeping well (hate when that happens). Turn on early news and conduct short, intense Primal routine (one-minute rest between exercises): 3 × 60 pushups, 3 × 35 squats, 3 × 25 abbreviated dips between armchair and coffee table, 3 × 60-second abs planks. Elapsed time from first effort to stepping in the shower: 17 minutes.

8:00 a.m.:
Breakfast of four-egg chile-chicken omelet at IHOP. Extra sour cream and Cholula hot sauce. Try as they might (and they try hard), they still can’t get me to take the pancakes (or toast or English muffin) that come free with the order. Coffee with cream and packet of sugar.

9:00 a.m.:
Arrive at studio for four to five hours of taping. Drink a couple bottles of water—the most water I drink all week!—to keep my vocal chords lubed.

2:30 p.m.:
Late lunch with the production team. All the ribs you can eat (which isn’t all that much) and iced tea at a local rib joint. I’d prefer a salad bar, but this is where the crew wants to eat and we are in Texas…who am I to say no? Skip the mashed potatoes, potato salad, corn, cornbread, applesauce, and bug juice, thus sparing my system of well over 200 grams of carbs in one fell swoop.

4:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m.:
Walk the Irving Mall (low-level aerobic activity) and make phone calls the whole time. Head to airport.

6:00 p.m.:
Dinner at TGI Friday’s (in the terminal)—pecan crusted chicken salad and a glass of cabernet. One of my favorite travel meals. Board plane, fly home.

Wednesday Micronutrient Calculations

Coffee with cream and packet of sugar

Chile-chicken omelet

Ribs (6 ounces) and iced tea

Chicken salad and glass of cabernet

FitDay.com
Analysis

Total Calories: 2,087

Protein: 153 grams, 612 calories (29 percent)

Carbs: 92 grams, 368 calories (17 percent)

Fat: 123 grams, 1,107 calories (50 percent)

Note:
this was a long day of hard work, but even with the three sit-down meals, I ate fewer calories than I normally do. I often use traveling as a great opportunity to engage in Intermittent Fasting. Tuesday’s busy schedule contributed to my consuming only around 30 percent of my normal daily caloric intake. Because the food options on the road are generally inferior or difficult to find, I hone my foraging skills and look for nothing but protein and vegetables.

Thursday—Malibu Day

7:30 a.m.:
Wake up and shake off the effects of jet lag with a quick plunge in the pool (I’d estimate mid-60s temp) and a coffee with cream. Head to desk to catch up.

10:00 a.m.:
Down Primal Omelet with four eggs, sprinkled mozzarella cheese, sliced mushrooms, and green peppers, topped with sliced avocado and a scoop of fresh salsa. Back to desk.

11:00 a.m.:
11:00 a.m.: Head to gym for “pull and sprint day”. Intense 30-minute gym workout (cable rows, wide grip pull-ups, inverted rows, cable curls). Jog to car, drive to beach to catch low tide. Commence 10 barefoot sprint sets (jog 10 strides, transition 12 strides, all-out sprint 15 strides). Easy cooldown jog, brief Grok Squat stretch, quick plunge in ocean. Gym and beach total time: 50 minutes. Head home and shower.

1:00 p.m.:
Make my world-famous Primal Salad (check video at
MarksDailyApple.com
) with 15 veggies and a scoop of canned salmon, drenched in olive oil–based dressing. Nothing to drink. Granny Smith apple for dessert. Back to work in the office.

4:00 p.m.:
Big handful of almonds and break from desk to throw tennis ball to a very old, very slow yellow lab named Buddha. En route back to desk, a challenge is issued by my son, Kyle. Detour from office to garage for a battle royale championship match on Wii Rock Band. Obtain perfect score of 100 on Rock Band vocals to reign supreme in Sisson family (Law #7, Play).

7:30 p.m.:
Grass-fed steak (10 ounces), three cups of steamed broccoli dripping in real butter, glass of merlot. Okay, one more. Doesn’t get any better than that!

8:30 p.m.:
Watch TiVo replay of one of our favorite 30-minute sitcoms, followed by 60-minute ESPN SportsCenter broadcast. Watch both broadcasts in only 52 minutes total.

10:00 p.m.:
Five-minute outdoor walk with Buddha, retire to bed for some pleasure reading. Lights out, and out like a light, at 10:30 p.m.

Thursday Micronutrient Calculations

Coffee with cream

Primal Omelet

Primal Salad

Granny Smith apple

Big handful of almonds

Steak and broccoli

Two glasses of merlot

FitDay.com
Analysis

Total Calories: 2,676

Protein: 168 grams, 672 calories (25 percent)