Caveman Exercise 103

In the last post, we discussed the general attributes of exercise. In short:

1. It should be hard
2. It should be consistent
3. It should be varied

Now you might be asking "So, Jacob, how do I translate this into actual exercise?" I'm glad you asked. Here are my 4 principles for Devolving your exercise:

1. Make Time Every Day- Cavemen did not get days off. It is that simple. It's not like your stone age ancestor could say "I don't think I'll try and get food today. I'd rather just lounge on the beach and read my granite tablet." Getting food was an all-day, daily activity. There were no rest days. Now, this is the modern world, and we do have the luxury of being able to rest occasionally, so I am not saying that you can NEVER take a rest day, but they should be the exception, not the rule.

2. Push Yourself- Just like with the vacation days, Thag, your stone age ancestor, was not really able to say "I don't feel like running after that rabbit. I'll just walk instead. I'm sure it will wait." Survival was often hard, and required their full capacity. If you want to be fit like them, you'll use yours as well.

3. Do Things a caveman Would Have Done- Cavemen did not have stability, but they certainly had variety. They never knew what they might have to do in the struggle to survive. They might have to run, jump, climb, crawl, or swim. Unlike us, they did not perform the exact same routine day in and day out. This is why they were not overtrained, even though they "exercised" all day, nearly every day. If you want your body to be able to take anything, then you will do a wide and varied spectrum of exercise.

4. Be Patient, Don't Give Up!- We in the modern world like a nice linear progression. We expect to invest a little every day, and see a return in nice regular intervals. At work, we get paid by the hour, and get regular deposits to our bank account every two weeks. The natural world does not function like our social structure. You may work hard for months, and see no gains, then all of a sudden make vast improvements in a week. That is just the way of a natural system. The bottom line is be patient. You didn't become fat and sedentary in a day, and you will not retain fitness in a day. If you aren't making visible progress, just trust the process You will see results eventually, if you stick with it.

Overall, pretty common sense, yet most of us tend not to follow these principles when it comes to our exercise, and fitness suffers for it.

Caveman Exercise 102

In the last post, I talked a lot about what exercise isn't. Now it's time to address what it is. As I said last time, most people have differing ideas when it comes to exercise, but almost all can agree that by and large, we don't do enough of it. Given our country's obesity epidemic and the fact that the average American watches four hours of TV a day, that conclusion is obvious.

In order to understand what exercise should be, we should spend some time thinking about what exercise does. Simply put, the human body requires physical activity, the way a car requires gasoline. Unlike your car, however, the more you use your body, the stronger it becomes. When we take people and force them to sit or lay in bed without exercise, many bad changes occur. They lose energy and get depression. They get blood clots, pneumonia, and other bad diseases. Even their cholesterol levels change, whether or not their diet changes.

From this we can see that the first purpose of exercise is to maintain, strengthen, and refresh the body. Exercise also helps to strengthen and maintain the cardiovascular system, improving fitness and treating such diseases as coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Finally, exercise helps stabilize mood and promote mental well being. Exercise is a far more powerful antidepressant than any pill made today.

To reap these benefits, there are certain things that exercise must be:
1. It must be hard- It is not a coincidence that the word "exercise" and the word "exert" have the same root. In order for exercise to mean something, it must be difficult. That being said, what is difficult for me might not be for a pro football player. No matter what level you are at, exercise must challenge your limits. If a certain routine gets to the point where it is easy, then it is time to step the level up.

2. It must be consistent- Cavemen did not get days off, or rest days. They had to fight for survival and look for food every day. If you want exercise to give you maximal benefits, then you need to do it nearly every day. I'm not saying that you can never take a day off, but that should be the exception, not the rule

3. It should be varied- We say that variety is the spice of life. For cavemen, it WAS life. They never knew what they would have to do in their search for food and struggle to survive. Running, jumping, climbing, crawling, carrying, pushing, pulling. Nothing was impossible. This is why they never got "overtrained." Overtraining is really just doing the exact same routine too many times, until the repetition injures the body. To avoid this, you need to vary your routine, so that the body can't adapt.

In the end, just remember the guiding principle when it comes to exercise: some is good. More is better. You can never really get too much.

More about exercise in the next post.

Caveman Exercise 101

When I say exercise what do you think of?

Almost everyone I talk with has a different answer to this. They range from the ludicrous (100 steps on the treadmill = cardio workout) to more than adequate  (100+ miles running per week). Most people probably have the picture in their minds of people on machines at a health club. All of these (except the first one, that's just crazy) can qualify as exercise. So, when we say "exercise," what should we mean?

I like to think about it in terms of the desired outcome. In the end, what are we trying to get out of exercising? The answer is fitness. The purpose of exercise is to keep the body fit and healthy, and able to perform whatever actions we require of it. Aside from that, exercise has many beneficial side effects: it is a potent antidepressant and mood stabilizer, it treats many diseases, such as high blood pressure, type II diabetes, heart disease, chronic pain, and high cholesterol (even if you don't change your diet too much). That being said, for exercise to do this, it needs to be done right.

Cavemen did not exercise per se. Their exercise was a part of daily life. They had to run down food, forage for food, and evade predators. To do this, they had to run, jump, climb, crawl, and possibly swim. Since probably 80-90% of their waking hours were spent in the search for food, They didn't really have to worry about exercising in addition to daily activities. Their daily activities WERE what kept them fit and healthy.

Fast forward to today. In the information age, most of us have desk jobs. That means that we wake up, get into our cars, drive to work, walk into the office, sit at a desk for eight hours, walk back to the car, drive home, and walk into the house. That's about it for walking. Depending how close to your job and house you park, that could be as few as 500 steps or so. Given our modern lifestyle, there is no doubt that we need additional activity in order to maintain the health of our bodies.

The government and health organizations try to address this by putting a time on it. They say things like "exercise for 30 minutes daily." In order not to scare people off, however, they lower the bar so much on what activities they recommend that that thirty minutes is mostly wasted time. Walking at a moderate pace, which the federal government considers adequate, barely qualifies as activity, let alone exercise. It can be a good starter when you are sedentary (that is how I started when I was 350 lbs), but unless you increase the intensity, you are doing yourself little good as far as the benefits of exercise are concerned.

More on what exercise should be like in Caveman Nutrition 102

Why Ask Why? Ask Why Twice!

In my recent posts, I stressed that we should all choose foods for nutritional value first, flavor second. We have to do this because our sense of taste, which guided our caveman ancestors so well, is not suited to life in a calorie and fat rich environment like ours. Simply put, in our world of abundant calories and processed foods, you cannot trust your own sense of taste to help you eat right.

Hence my third rule, the one about choosing foods for nutrition first. This is not always as easy to do as it is to say. To help you do this, become very familiar with the word 'why'. To make sure that you are engaging your brain rather than your instincts, why is your best friend. In fact, it is so good to have around, that I am asking you to keep two "whys" nearby.

Whenever you are going to eat something is the time to pull out why. First ask yourself "why am I eating?" If the answer is anything other than "I am hungry," such as "I am bored," "I am upset," etc... then DROP THE FOOD! You are not eating to fuel your body, but for one of the dozens of other reasons we eat these days. If the answer is "I am hungry," then you passed why #1, and it is time to move on to the next one.

The next question to ask is "why am I eating this?" The type of food you choose to put in your body is the most important decision you can make. That food is what composes your body tissues, and gives your body and brain the energy to function. It should be the highest quality food available! If you cannot honestly answer question #2 "because this is high quality fuel for my body," you should choose something else to eat.

Like all of you, I am far from perfect. There are many times I answer question 2 "because it tastes good and I want to eat it." That is OK, as long as it is the minority, rather than the majority. I shoot for 90% good fuel with the occasional treat or indulgence. Whether you choose to eat the tasty treat or not, merely asking the question makes you mindful of the act, and will keep you from eating without reason. Asking will also keep excess pounds off your body, and keep you feeling great.

So remember: Why ask why? Ask why twice!

Fasting

Living like a caveman brings up the question of fasting. There are some "caveman inspired" diets out there that advocate periods of intense consumption, followed by those of complete fasting, simulating what they think a caveman might have eaten like.

While it is true that cavemen may have had some days where they were not able to get food, I do not recommend fasting as part of a modern diet. This is for several reasons:

1. Fasting slows your metabolism- When you don't eat, your body thinks it is starving. Remember, we are designed to live in a low calorie environment. The body quickly goes into metabolic shutdown, then fails to burn off the food that you do eat.

2. Fasting leads to overconsumption- Even if cavemen did not get foods on a given day, they had the same whole food, low calorie choices that were available to them the day before. They could not binge on twinkies when they were allowed to eat. Nor could they "cheat" on their fast, and eat convenience foods.

3. Fasting decreases performance- fasting can lead to fatigue, decreased stamina, dehydration, and decreased mental and athletic performance. Not exactly what you want if you have to do a job, or are trying to train your body to be fit and lose weight.

In addition, I don't know this for sure, but I suspect that cavemen fasted far less frequently than these diets suggest. I'll bet they had lower and higher calorie days, but most days they probably at least got some calories, enough to keep their metabolism going. Let's also remember that many cavemen probably starved to death due to lack of food. This is probably not the outcome you are looking for.

I do recommend a meat fast, however. It is very likely that cavemen did not get meat every day. Thus, our systems are probably not meant to get meat every single day. If you want to cut something out of the diet, start with animal products.

A final note: I know that many people around the globe fast due to religious beliefs. If you are doing it for those reasons, and understand the potential consequences, then fine. I just don't think it is a good weight loss strategy.

Cavemen Didn't Eat Three Meals

Most people in the modern era follow the same eating pattern. Wake up. Eat Breakfast. Go to work. Eat lunch during break time. Work more, then go home. Eat dinner. Go to sleep. This pattern is repeated over and over. The compartmentalizing of eating into meals to be eaten at certain times is an invention of society. It is convenient for structuring work days and social events, but it is not the best for maintaining health.

When you eat a big meal, particularly one of our modern fat and processed sugar laden ones, your blood sugar spikes, then plummets. Within two to three hours, you begin to feel hungry, fatigued, irritable, and shaky. Your body is telling you that you need to eat again. Since the next meal time has not arrived, you reach for a snack. Most of the time, what is available is some form of processed crap. You scarf this down, leading to another sugar spike and crash. This is good for the people who make the processed crap, but not for your waistline.

Cavemen ate very differently. They wouldn't wait for a meal time to eat. They would eat whenever they could. If they came upon a food source, and they were hungry, they ate it. Since they had no way to store the food, and could only keep as much as they could carry, and still outrun or evade a predator who wanted to eat them, cavemen would eat very frequently. I suggest eating six or seven small amounts of food daily, never getting completely stuffed, and never getting too hungry.

I emulate the cavemen in this respect. I eat small amounts of food at frequent intervals during the day. In our modern world, this requires some planning. I carry a cooler with me to work, filled with multiple fruits, vegetables, and other whole food snacks. Whenever I begin to feel hungry, I pull out one of my snacks, and eat it.

This strategy has several advantages. First, you avoid the spike and crash cycle of conventional eating. Second, since you are planning to eat frequently, you have healthy snacks handy, rather than reaching for twinkies or cookies. Finally, you never get really hungry, so you are never tempted to overeat. Eat frequently like a caveman and you will avoid overeating, the afternoon crash, and wanting to club your co-workers on the head due to hunger induced irritability!

If taste doesn't work, what should we do?

Last time I mentioned that our caveman ancestors were driven by their taste instincts to foods which were best for them. In their world of scarce food, that meant calorie dense nutrition sources with sugar and fats. These foods packed the most bang for the buck, so it made sense to eat as much of them as you could when you found them, as you could never be sure when your next meal would arrive.

In our modern world, food is everywhere. In the space of a century or two, we went from not having enough food to having far too much. Sadly, there are parts of the world where people are still starving, but on the whole, we in America have too many calories. As such, if you follow your taste like your ancestors did, and eat as much of those sugary and fatty foods as you can, you will end up looking like I did. Obesity is partially the result of our primitive taste not being well suited for easy convenient food.

Thankfully, we have an advantage that our caveman ancestors didn't... our intellect. Once you are aware that your tastes will steer you in the wrong direction, you can engage your brain to put you back on the right course. To do this, you have to imagine yourself in the place of a caveman, and eat like they ate.

Cavemen would have eaten a diet very heavy in vegetables, roots, and grains, as these are the most abundant food sources. Fruits would have been next in quantity, as they are available only seasonally. Meats and animal products would have been the smallest component of their diet, as animals are pretty hard to catch. Cavemen also did not process their food, but ate it as it grew in nature, with some cooking in many instances.


In order to eat like your body needs, follow the caveman nutrition rules:

1. Eat Foods in Their Natural State
2. Eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, and very little if any meat, eggs or dairy
3. Choose foods for nutrition, not flavor

Now you know how to follow rule number 3!