Primal Living in a Modern World

On December 1st, I’m kicking off My21DayX (Experiments in Lifestyle Modification) by going 100% Primal…and the family is going with me!

Mark Sisson, author of The Primal Blueprint, defines it best:

The Basics
1. Eat real food.
2. Avoid sugar, grains, unhealthy fats, beans/legumes.
3. Align your carb intake with your weight goals and activity levels.
4. Move frequently at a slow pace: Get between 2-5 hours per week of moderate aerobic exercise.
5. Lift heavy things: Conduct 1-3 brief, intense sessions of full-body functional movements.
6. Sprint: Go “all out” once a week.
7. Get 8 hours of sleep every night.
8. Get 15 minutes of direct sun exposure each day.
9. Play! Find time to let go, disconnect, unwind and have fun each day.

Details
“The Primal Blueprint is a set of simple instructions (the blueprint) that allows you to control how your genes express themselves in order to build the strongest, leanest, healthiest body possible, taking clues from evolutionary biology (that’s the primal part).

How we eat, exercise, sleep, interact with our social circles, stress, and spend time outdoors (plus tons of other environmental signals) determines how our genes express themselves; how our genes express themselves in turn determines our level of health. Genetic predisposition is not your destiny.

We’ve evolved to be fat-burners (must be why we’re so adept at storing it on our bodies!). It’s easy to see why. Fat burns slow and evenly, providing all-day steady energy levels. Carbohydrates burn quickly, and they’re gone in an instant, leaving you groggy and depleted unless you “carb up.” Furthermore, carbohydrates are an inherently unreliable and fleeting source of energy for our body, with most people only able to store about 400-500 grams of carbohydrates on the body at any one time. Our storage capacity for fat, on the other hand, is virtually endless. Just ten or fifteen pounds of body fat, which is the bare minimum available on even the leanest individuals, can provide tens of thousands of calories. Luckily, reducing carbohydrates and increasing fat intake sends the epigenetic signals necessary to help us revert back to fat-burning, and it only takes a week or two to get things moving in the right direction.

Become fat-adapted, enjoy boundless energy. Free yourself from the shackles of a carbohydrate-based metabolism/dependency.”

You can download my Paleo/Primal Resource Guide and Shopping list here.

Ground Rules for the Experiment
• Nutrition
No grains (including corn), sugar, industrial seed oil (soybean, cotton, canola, sunflower, safflower), no beans/legumes (including peanuts)…this basically means no processed food. Read the ingredients labels on everything – it’s a good habit to get into anyway!

Consume less than 150 grams of carbohydrates a day.

• Sleep
6-8 hours per night

• Stress Management
5-10 minutes of meditation, tai chi, yoga, journaling, or breathing every morning and every evening

• Sprint & Lift Heavy Things – Move a Lot
2-3 workout days (weights or bodyweight)
1 15-20 minute sprint day (I use RunKeeper which syncs with Virgin Pulse, to track this)
Minimum 10,000 steps everyday (here’s the pedometer I use)

• Sunshine / Vitamin D
15-30 minutes in the sun every day or supplement

• Social Interactions & Play
Hang out with friends, family, wife and kids every day for at least 30 minutes.

• Smart Supplementation
Take a multivitamin/mineral and a broad-spectrum antioxidant everyday.
Take additional recommended supplements based on my nutritional gaps – use the Core Health Assessment tool to determine gaps. Use this app if you need a reminder.

You can download a pdf of these ground rules here. Print them and hang them in a place you look at frequently.

Check with me daily or weekly by commenting on facebook, twitter, G+, or this post. We would love to hear how it is going for you, ask questions, share recipes, or just touch base for support. We are doing this together!

What questions do you have before getting started? Scroll past the infographic to comment.