Ideal Protein - Weight Control Clinic

11/26/2021

How to Stop Overthinking Food Choices

What if I told you I start my morning with a glass of lemon water?
Maybe you’d think:

‘Who cares?! Why does it matter what Berardi drinks first thing in the morning?’

You wouldn’t be wrong.

But if you’re a certain type of person—the kind who loves to geek out on nutrition science—it might spark your curiosity (and maybe a little FOMO).

Perhaps you’d ask:

“Why add lemon? For digestion? Liver detoxification? Antioxidant protection?”

In other words:

“Does lemon contain some sort of biochemical superpower I haven’t yet learned about? And, if so, should I be including it myself?”

If you’re another type of person—more skeptical in nature—you might be less curious and more annoyed:

“Ugh—more detoxing BS?!? Detoxing isn’t even a thing. I thought you were evidence-based!”

If you’re super up-to-date on the latest research, you might even say:

“Lemons, really? Haven’t you done your research? Don’t you know that [enter nutrient/supplement du jour] has proven to be more effective?”

So, just in case you’re wondering, here’s the real reason I drink lemon water in the morning:

I wake up thirsty. And I like the taste of lemon in my water.

(Cue anti-climactic music.)

Yep, that’s it.

That’s the big secret behind my beverage choice.

I’m not trying to support liver detoxification or digestion.

Nor am I trying to add antioxidant power or alter my body’s pH.

(I’m also not an “industry shill for Big Lemon.” Promise.)

I simply like the taste.

Now, if that answer disappoints you—or you were already halfway to the store to pick up some lemons—you might need to hear what I’m about to say.

Because I think it’s time we stop over-nutritionalizing our food.

Before we go any further, I have to admit something.
I’ve been guilty of the very thing I’m critiquing in this article. In fact, if you like, you can blame the whole problem on me.

Early in my career, I wrote A LOT, perhaps too much, about the biochemical and physiological properties of food.

I churned out article after article examining various signaling pathways in fat and muscle cells, and the specific nutrients that could alter them.

Now, I didn’t intend to start a trend of over-focusing on the scientific properties of food. To be honest, I didn’t really think much about my intention at all. (That was kinda the problem).

I was just really into biochemistry and physiology.

As a PhD candidate, publishers gave me a platform to share what I was learning, what I was experimenting with (in the lab), and what I found intriguing.

And when I co-founded Precision Nutrition, I was able to reach and influence even more people.

Along the way, readers took a cue from me.

Coaches, trainers, and fellow “nutrition nerds” fell down the rabbit hole too. They followed my interests. They started focusing on the biochemical and nutritional details of food. And, like me, they shared their interests, thoughts, and experiments with others.

It started a chain reaction.

Yet, as Precision Nutrition developed, my perspective changed.

My understanding of food broadened.

I came to believe (as I still do) that food is not merely fuel. That no single diet is universally superior. And that there are a lot more considerations to eating than “how does nutrient X affect pathway Y in my body?”.

Don’t get me wrong: Understanding the scientific properties of food is helpful—to a point.

There’s a reason why PN teaches the science of nutrition in the Precision Nutrition Level 1 Nutrition Coaching Certification: because it’s useful to understand the “why” behind nutrition recommendations before you start doling them out to clients.

But when I look around these days, I see a lot of people hyper-focused on the biochemical and physiological aspects of food.

Call it over-nutritionalizing, over-intellectualizing, or over-sciencing. Whatever name you give it, it’s characterized by an almost obsessive interest in the nutritional and physiological aspects of a given food.

And we need to tamp that down. Or, at least, balance it out.

People always ask me, “Why’d you choose THAT food / ingredient / supplement?”
Sometimes, I share pictures of what I eat on Instagram.

Either a single meal or an entire day of meals.

People are always asking me how I eat so, occasionally, I oblige by sharing my own meals or what our family is eating.

But every time I do, the same thing happens: People send a barrage of questions, most of them having to do with the physiological or health value of a particular inclusion (or exclusion). I try to answer the queries, but frankly, it’s hard to keep up.

Photo shows Dr. John Berardi’s breakfast, with callouts that identify each item, questions he gets about the item, and quick answers he gives to people. Item 1: Steel-cut oats + raw mixed nuts + frozen mixed berries. Q: Why steel-cut oats? A: I like the texture better. Item #2: Chicken bacon + 1 cup egg whites + 1 whole egg + hot sauce. Q: Why chick bacon? A: I like it best. Q: What chicken bacon? A: Whatever I find at store. Q: Why egg whites? A: More protein without extra cals. Q: Why only 1 egg? A: I get fat from other sources too. Q: Why hot sauce? A: I like it. Q: What hot sauce: I like all kinds. Item 3: Caffeine-free herbal tea. Q: Why no caffeine. A: I don’t like how it makes me feel. Item 4: 1 Liter water + 1 scoop green drink + 1 scoop collagen protein. Q: Why greens drink? A: Tastes goo, extra nutrients.
This is a photo of my recent breakfast, with annotated captions to give you a small taste of the back and forth. You can see the entire Q and A in my original Instagram post.
No matter how much explanation I provide, the questions keep coming. Here’s a sampling from recent posts of various meals.

Why do you add lemon to your water?
Why don’t you eat yams or brown rice or (my favorite starchy carb source)?
Why don’t you eat pineapple, watermelon, or (my favorite fruit)?
Why don’t you drink milk, eat cheese, or (my favorite dairy)?
I see you eat sauerkraut. Why not kimchi?
I see you use collagen protein. Why not whey?
You take a vitamin or a protein supplement or a probiotic? Which brand? Which strain? For what benefit? But what about the research that says X or Y or Z?
You get the idea.

Hence my lemon water example from earlier. Every time I show a meal with a glass of water with lemon, people are deeply concerned with the “health value” of the lemon.

In essence, it feels like everything the nutritionist eats MUST have a scientific reason for its inclusion.

Folks seem disappointed or dissatisfied when I tell them I add it because I like the taste. Or it’s one of my favorite foods. Or it’s all I had available that day.

Similarly, if I don’t include a particular food on a given day, like brown rice or mangoes or coffee, folks get really wrapped up in whether I think the missing food is somehow “bad for you.”

Heck, everything the nutritionist doesn’t eat MUST ALSO have a scientific reason for its exclusion.

But here’s the truth:

Not every food decision I make is grounded in science.
Sometimes I eat foods because I like them. (Shocking, I know.) Or because they make me feel good. Or because our children want me to share a particular food with them.

Likewise, I often avoid other foods that I don’t like. Or that make me feel bad. (Yep, even the “healthy” ones.) Or that aren’t easily accessible to me.

Here’s an example I posted about recently.

I’ve learned, through the process of self-experimentation, that tomatoes and peppers seem to cause flare-ups in the osteoarthritis that bothers my knees.

So, most of the time, I avoid them.

Even though I like to eat them. Even though there isn’t much data to suggest that nightshades like tomatoes and peppers are problematic. I minimize them in my diet because they make me feel bad.

Now, just because I’ve stopped eating them…

Am I saying that tomatoes and peppers (or other nightshades) will affect everyone with osteoarthritis?

No.

Can I tell you for sure that it’s the biochemical properties of the tomatoes and peppers that affect me and not something else (like the placebo effect)?

No.

Am I suggesting that other people should stop eating tomatoes and peppers?

Definitely not.

They just don’t work for me.

So, what’s wrong with nerding out on nutrition?
Like I said, I’m a science guy. There’s nothing wrong with knowing your facts.

But this hyper-nutritionalizing can be problematic in a few ways:

#1: Your “research” may not be all that good.
It’s time to get real about something.

Nutrition science is complicated, and relatively early in its evolution. This means there’s a fair bit of research out there that’s open to interpretation.

(And very few absolute hard and fast rules that apply to everybody.)

As a result, it’s not hard to find research that justifies our own preferences.

Imagine this…

Suppose I enjoy a glass of lemon water in the morning. So I think to myself, “Hmm, maybe there’s a health benefit to this. Let’s find out.”

So I visit PubMed (the world’s largest index of biomedical research) and search for scientific studies that support the use of lemon water.

Or I Google something like: “health benefits of lemon water in the morning.” (Try it. You’ll get lots of results.)

Bingo. Now I can start spreading the news of the virtuous lemon water—and give myself a pat on the back for enjoying my superior morning beverage.

See the problem here?

We’re biased. This type of “research” is often a desire to justify our preferences and natural inclinations through “evidence.”

That’s a dangerous practice, one that breeds self-justification and a certain kind of “evidence blindness” to research that doesn’t support one’s preferences.

It also signals the end of curiosity, which is at the heart of scientific inquiry.

And it happens all the time, even to smart people and good thinkers.

They let their personal preferences lead their information search, instead of legitimately trying to get to the bottom of what humans do know (or can know) about a particular subject. Then, once they’ve found the research that supports what they were going to do anyway, they proselytize it as “proven” or “evidence-based.”

But “knowledge” that was gained in this fashion is, at best, incomplete.

At worst, it isn’t really knowledge at all.

#2: Food is more than its biochemical make-up. (And so are we.)
When we get hyper-focused on the science behind our food intake, we miss out on other benefits of eating, like:

Cultural practices/traditions
Enjoyment and pleasure
Expressing hospitality or spending time with family and friends over a meal
How they make us feel, physically or otherwise
Just as “health” is more than “not being sick,” food is more than just nutrients.

And, for that matter, humans are much more than our biochemical and physiological makeup.

Whether or not a food “works for us” in the context of our daily lives has to do with more than just research.

It also has to do with our goals, our preferences, our lifestyle, our cooking skills, our cultural background, our eating and living situation, our access to certain foods, our taste buds, our social determinants of health, and so much more.

Sure, there are some general nutritional basics that work for most of us, but that doesn’t mean that someone is doing it wrong if they prefer regular whole oats to steel-cut oats.

#3: It breeds judgment and the moralization of foods.
In a recent Instagram post, I mentioned that I’ve been “zero alcohol” for three years now and that I think it’s contributed, in small part, to some positive health outcomes, particularly around hormonal health.

This statement was interpreted as a win for those with a “clean eating” or “virtuous health” or “why would you put that poison in your body?” mindset.

Many folks gave me a virtual pat on the back for this choice—as in, “Exactly! Alcohol is poison!”

Meanwhile, others took it as a personal affront. Like I was attacking their decision to drink.

But for me, not drinking isn’t a moral decision. Or a tribal one. I personally abstain because avoiding alcohol seems to help with my autoimmune disease.

And, to be honest, I never enjoyed drinking that much anyway. (Alcohol makes me irritable and sleepy which, alone, is annoying and, in social settings, makes me want to go home.)

But just because I don’t drink doesn’t mean I search for all the info I can find about why alcohol is bad for everyone and then proselytize against it. I understand it serves different needs for different people. And that some of those, on balance, could be healthy… in the right context. (For examples, check out: Would I be healthier if I quit drinking?)

Bottom line: ⁠⁠I’m not anti-alcohol, nor am I pro-alcohol; I just made a decision that felt best for me. And my point here is this:

Someone else’s food choices—whether scientifically supported or not—shouldn’t send you into a tailspin.

Nor should your personal food choices be the basis for telling others what they should or shouldn’t do, regardless of what your self-directed scan of the research tells you is “right” or “wrong.”

If you find yourself doing either, it’s time to back up and gain some perspective.

I can’t recommend a “best food” or a “best diet,” but I can recommend this.
Try to stay open-minded.

It’s up to you to find foods that you enjoy eating, and that help contribute to your goals, whatever they might be.

And if you’re a coach, it’s your job to help your clients find those foods—and those goals—for themselves.

A healthy relationship with food doesn’t require you to nitpick over every small decision or have a scientific justification for everything you choose.

In fact, once you understand the basics of how various nutrients work in the body, a healthy relationship with food might mean the exact opposite… broadening your perspective on eating beyond the “scientific benefits.”

Yes, it can take time and practice to understand what works best for you, your body, your family, and your lifestyle. And to enjoy those foods without overthinking them.

That’s the balance here.
To recognize that, at the beginning of your “healthy eating journey,” you might actually need to spend more time learning about your food to help facilitate better, more thoughtful choices.

But then, at a certain point, you might need to step back and try to integrate that new knowledge into the context of your real life. To situate it within a broader, more robust framework for making eating decisions.

Because, if you go too far here, your ideas about food can end up mired in superstition or “sciencestition.” When that happens, it’s difficult to be objective. Difficult to stay curious and open-minded. Difficult to learn anything, for yourself or for your clients.

So that’s your first experiment.

Back away from the research database. Make yourself a meal without overanalyzing it. And while you’re at it, pour yourself a glass of water. Lemon or no lemon? The choice is yours.

11/23/2021

Would You Make a Great Sleep Coach?

As a trainer, therapist, health coach, or dietitian, you probably see your clients more than most physicians see their patients.

That extra time allows you to build rapport and trust—critical components for helping clients get unstuck.

Now here’s something you might not know:
That rapport and trust could make you a seriously great sleep coach.

The reason: A lot of emotional investment goes into helping people change the multitude of daily habits that affect sleep, says Chris Winter, MD, a leading sleep specialist, author of several books (including The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child) and contributing expert to PN’s Sleep, Stress Management, and Recovery certification.

“Trainers, therapists, health coaches, and dietitians might be positioned to do that better than a doctor,” says Dr. Winter.

(And, yes, that’s actually coming from a sleep doctor.)

Plus, according to Dr. Winter…

There aren’t enough sleep doctors.
Long wait lists prevent people from getting the help they need—and some of those people suffer from mild sleep issues that truly don’t rise to the level of “I need a doctor to look at this.”

Take that person who knows their 4 pm cup of coffee keeps them up at night.

This person most likely doesn’t need a doctor. A sleep coach, on the other hand, can help them identify and try many different strategies—weaning off caffeine slowly, substituting another activity for their coffee break, drinking an alternative beverage—until the client finds the one that works.

That’s just the start, though.
Sleep, stress management, and recovery coaching is often the missing link to achieving nutrition and fitness goals.

With specific training, you can help your clients go from overwhelmed and backsliding to feeling as if they can handle whatever life pitches them.

(And life hurls some wicked curveballs.)

The best news…
You likely ALREADY have several traits and skills needed to become a highly effective sleep, stress management, and recovery coach.

Here are three more reasons you’re perfect for the job.

Reason #1: Sleep and stress affect health and fitness… a lot.
Professional athletic teams like the Red Sox hire sleep specialists like Dr. Winter to help their players level up.

That’s because elite performers know:

Improved sleep and stress resilience lay the foundation for improved health and performance.

This is true for all humans, not just professional athletes.

“Optimal sleep, stress, and recovery makes every other aspect of someone’s health journey easier to achieve,” says Greg Wells, PhD, performance physiologist, author of Rest, Refocus, and Recharge, and a consultant for our Sleep, Stress Management, Recovery certification.

(Preach!)

Reason #2: You already have a lot of the qualities needed to help people change.
Maybe you’ve committed your life to helping people.

“That means, almost by default, you’re empathetic and you have compassion,” Dr. Wells says.

In addition to those traits, you’ve probably also developed many skills that facilitate behavior change.

For example, you probably know how to:

Clarify people’s goals (and dig up the crucial motivations behind them)
Listen to (and actually hear) people
Help people transform their old habits into new, healthier behaviors
Despite all of that, you might still feel inadequate when trying to help people with their sleep and stress management issues.

That’s where additional training can help. By gaining specific knowledge and expert techniques, you can build the confidence you need.

Reason #3: This falls squarely into your scope of practice.
Knowing when to refer out for sleep, stress, and recovery is not all that different from knowing when to refer out for health or fitness.

As a sleep coach, you can work with people to develop practices that improve sleep quality and quantity—but you can’t diagnose their sleep apnea or insomnia, offer to run a sleep study, or adjust someone’s CPAP machine. They’ll want to see a physician for those sorts of things.

Their doctor will likely prescribe some behavioral changes:

“Have a better pre-bedtime ritual.”
“Practice these cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) exercises.”
“Use the CPAP consistently.”
And that’s where you come in: You can help your clients actually do these things… successfully.

(If you’re ever in doubt about what is and isn’t without your scope of practice, check out our Scope of Practice Worksheet.)

The takeaway: While you can’t replace the value and necessity of a doctor, you can help clients effectively implement a doctor’s advice.

You’ve got the chops. (Really.)
By learning to help your clients improve their sleep, stress management, and recovery, you’ll add an edge to your coaching expertise and business.

But even better? You can help your clients move to a level of health they never realized was possible.

If you’re a health and fitness coach…
Learning how to help clients manage stress, build resilience, and optimize sleep and recovery can be deeply transformative—for both of you.

It helps clients get “unstuck” and makes everything else easier—whether they want to eat better, move more, lose weight, or reclaim their health.

And for coaches: It gives you a rarified skill that will set you apart as an elite change maker.

The brand-new PN Level 1 Sleep, Stress Management, and Recovery Coaching Certification will show you how.

11/23/2021

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11/10/2021

Turkey Pot Pie Skillet

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This Turkey Pot Pie Skillet is the perfect recipe for leftover Thanksgiving turkey!

It’s all cooked in a cast iron skillet making cleanup a breeze.

If you don’t have a cast iron skillet it’s ok, just use a regular skillet and pour everything into a baking dish.

With my WW Personal Points this recipe is only 6 points per serving. Click here to view your WW Personal Points and track it on your app.

Instead of a traditional pie crust I used biscuits, it’s much easier and they cook fast. Using biscuits also helped to reduce the points.

Here’s what you need to make Turkey Pot Pie Skillet:

Onion

Garlic

Butter

Flour

Chicken Broth

Skim milk

Cooked turkey breast

Frozen peas and carrots

Biscuits

Salt and paper

Most of these ingredients are ones I always have on hand.

To make this easy recipe I started by adding two tablespoons of butter to a 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat. Once the butter was melted I added the onion and garlic.

Next I added the peas and carrots and let them cook for two minutes. Then I sprinkled the flour onto the vegetables and stirred it together.

Slowly add in the chicken broth while stirring with a wooden spoon, then stir in the milk.

Turn the heat to medium-high and let the mixture simmer. After a few minutes it should have thickened. That’s when you can stir in the turkey meat.

Shut the heat off and top the pot pie mixture with the biscuits. If you’re using a cast iron skillet you can put the whole thing in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until the biscuits are golden brown.

If you don’t have a cast iron skillet you’ll want to add the pot pie mixture to an oven safe dish then top it with biscuits.

You can also use cooked chicken for this recipe if you don’t have turkey. Both are delicious!

Have you checked out my Etsy store? You can find digital downloads that are helpful if you’re following WW. There is also digital artwork. Here are a few examples:

Turkey Pot Pie Skillet

Yield: 5 servings

Click here to view your WW Personal Points and track it on your app.

Ingredients

2

cups

cooked turkey breast

2

tablespoons

butter

1

small

onion, diced

1

clove

garlic, minced

1

cup

peas and carrots (I used frozen)

3

tablespoons

all purpose flour

14.5

oz.

chicken broth

1/2

cup

fat free skim milk

5

Pillsbury grands junior golden homestyle buttermilk biscuits

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a 10-inch cast iron skillet melt the butter. Add the onions and cook for 3 minutes. Then add the garlic, peas and carrots. Cook 2 more minutes.

Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables. Slowly add in the chicken broth while stirring followed by the milk. Turn heat to medium high and bring to a simmer. Let mixture cook for 5 minutes to thicken.

Add in the turkey and top with the biscuits.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the biscuits are cooked through and golden brown.

Here are some more WW friendly recipes:

Creamy Chicken Skillet

Chicken Burrito Skillet

Chicken Peanut Ramen Skillet

If you’re looking for some zero point recipes, check out my post 20 Zero Point Recipes or my post 20 (More) Zero Point Recipes. Both are filled with delicious recipes that won’t cost you a single point! They’re perfect for days when you’re running low on points, or trying to save up points for a night out.

If you’re looking for dessert recipes you can visit 50 Weight Watchers Freestyle Desserts. It’s filled with delicious desserts perfect for Weight Watchers!

Are you looking for a meal plan that’s Weight Watchers friendly? I have over 100 meal plans that you can choose from and I post a new one each week. Click here to check them out!

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News Turkey Pot Pie Skillet Byadmin November 10, 2021 Please follow and like us: This Turkey Pot Pie Skillet is the perfect recipe for leftover Thanksgiving turkey! It’s all cooked in a cast iron skillet making cleanup a breeze. If you don’t have a cast iron skillet it’s ok, just use a regular...

11/10/2021

Primal Blueprint Misconceptions

Here we are, closing in on 20 years of indulging this “fad” called the Primal/paleo movement. And the critics said we wouldn’t last. Ha! I find it extremely gratifying that new people are jumping on board, questioning conventional wisdom, configuring their own Primal practices, and, in doing so, remaking their health. It’s a testament to the fundamental soundness of the Primal Blueprint if I do say so myself.

Although I like to think that we are mainstream at this point, the reality is that I still get as many questions as ever highlighting the basic misunderstandings and confusion that continue to surround the Primal/paleo/ancestral health movement. That’s fine with me! I truly welcome all questions and comments. They mean that new people are finding us and are open to learning about how the Primal Blueprint might help them. Even when they challenge me—“What’s up with those weird toe shoes, Sisson?”—it’s an opportunity to plant a seed that might one day bloom into a new, healthier lifestyle.

In today’s post, I answer three common questions that refuse to die. If you’re new here, hopefully these clear up any lingering concerns you might have about diving into a Primal lifestyle. Primal vets, keep these responses in your back pocket. Whip them out next time you encounter a faux-concerned friend or family member who stubbornly insists on missing the point of what we’re all about here.

Why would I want to live like a caveman? What’s wrong with modern technology?

As much as I welcome questions, I do have to shake my head when people accuse me of trying to turn modern humans back into cavemen. Yes, that still happens, even after years and years of writing a blog on my laptop from my air-conditioned home. Clearly, I’m not trying to revert society back to Paleolithic times. I’m not advocating running through the streets in skins or hunting down dinner with spears (but more power to you if you’re sufficiently skilled).

Sure, Grok is our beloved icon here, but we all know that Grok would have loved to have had a refrigerator, comfortable bed, and Spotify subscription. My readers should know by now that the goal is to learn from Grok, gleaning clues about how to build superb lifelong health, not to emulate him completely.

As for what’s wrong with modern technology? Arguably plenty. But modern technology also allows us to live lives of unimaginable comfort compared to anything our ancestors enjoyed. Modern medicine, dentistry, transportation, communication—all of it is unquestionably a net positive for humanity despite the downsides. Grok’s life was hard stuff. It also shaped our genes into what they are today. We don’t need to make our lives artificially difficult (or more difficult than they are, anyway). We just need to respect the genetic blueprint we all inherited as humans.

Aren’t humans still evolving? Why should we even worry about what our long-gone ancestors did? Surely we’ve changed a lot since then.

The question of whether humans are still evolving is a complicated one. Even esteemed scientists disagree about it. (Maybe this shouldn’t be a surprise—scientists make their livings off disagreeing with one another.) Without getting too much in the weeds here, it’s clear that genetic selection is still taking place. Herding populations adapted to consume dairy. The English have become fairer in the past couple millenia, presumably to help with vitamin D production. The Dutch are getting taller, probably due to sexual selection pressure (female partners preferring tall men) rather than a particular survival advantage.

You know what’s not happening? Humans aren’t getting better at living on French fries and German chocolate cake, unfortunately. We don’t flourish thanks to chronic stress or getting four hours of sleep per night. Our muscles haven’t figured out how to grow stronger from sitting on the couch. We’re surviving not thriving in our modern environment.

Long story short, our biology hasn’t changed all that much in the evolutionary blip of 10,000 years since the Agricultural Revolution. Sure, our societies have advanced, our cultures have blossomed, our technological innovation has exploded, our fashion sense has improved. But time and more recent environmental and cultural pressures haven’t revolutionized our basic biochemistry. Glucose, insulin, adrenaline, glycogen, amino acids, glutathione—all still present and accounted for.

I remain as convinced as ever that the fundamental building blocks of health are those I laid out in the 10 Primal Blueprint Laws:

Eat lots of plants and animals.

Don’t eat things that undermine health.

Move your body as much as possible. Lift heavy things. Sprint sometimes.

Get lots of sleep and plenty of sunlight.

Play and engage your brain.

Don’t do stupid things that are likely to kill you.

…as well as other habits of highly successful hunter-gatherers. I challenge even the most hardcore paleo skeptic to prove that we have evolved to not need these things. If anything, these edicts are even more critical in our modern world where it is all too easy to ignore them and ruin our health in the process.

Didn’t cavemen die young? That doesn’t sound very aspirational.

Grok probably didn’t even live to see his 30th birthday. That’s what you’ve heard, right? Something along those lines? Let’s set the record straight.

According to many scientific analyses, including Henry Oliver Lancaster’s seminal work Expectations of Life, we need to reexamine our modern assumptions about early humans’ supposedly brief lifespans. They are based on little hard evidence, relying instead on backward extrapolation from contemporary hunter-gatherer groups. These groups do not serve as accurate comparison models because population density, disease introduction, and other intrusions of modern life have significantly impacted their ways of life.

Furthermore, we have to ask how our ancestors died. Grok’s third or fourth decade didn’t constitute “old age” as we understand it today—a drawn-out period of physical and cognitive decline. He wasn’t dying at 30 because he succumbed to diabetes-related complications or heart disease. Although the average life expectancy of early humans was probably about 33 years, much of that was driven by high infant mortality rates. If they survived infancy, early humans generally died as a result of trauma (accident or warfare), predator attacks, natural disasters, starvation, or exposure to the elements, not because their inferior genes meant their bodies gave out.

We aren’t living longer because we are inherently healthier or “more evolved” than our ancestors. We live longer because modern advances protect us from the things that used to take people out in their prime. Given modern medical care, relative food security, and better protection from the elements, the average early human could have survived to a ripe old age, even by modern standards. In fact, despite the harshness of life back then, many did. Those who made it past childhood probably had a decent chance of thriving well into their 60s or 70s. And since we know that, logistically, sick or debilitated folks probably wouldn’t have lasted long, we can surmise that Grok and kin were largely healthy right up until the end. That sounds pretty aspirational to me.

Bottom line: The Primal Blueprint is a framework for health in the modern world

Here’s the take-home message. The Primal Blueprint is ultimately about reconciling our primeval genes with modern circumstances. You can optimize health by choosing biologically appropriate food and activities within a 21st-century context. By all means, avail yourself of the many, many ways modern life is vastly superior to Grok’s existence. But also, respect the wisdom of our ancestors. Avoid the temptation to eschew modern medicine and other advances on principle (avoid the naturalistic fallacy). On the other hand, don’t glorify technology and assume that newer is always better.

By the way, I occasionally hear from readers who feel overwhelmed by how very different the modern world is from what our genes are accustomed to. They wonder how they can ever be “Primal enough” to make a difference. Every step you take matters, be it dropping your chronic cardio workouts, trying to buy better quality food a few nights per week, or turning off electronic devices a half-hour earlier each night. Rather than judging yourself against Grok, look to Grok for inspiration. And then be thankful for indoor plumbing!

Still have questions? Heard other misconceptions about the Primal approach? Send ‘em on, and share your thoughts.

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News Primal Blueprint Misconceptions Byadmin November 10, 2021 Here we are, closing in on 20 years of indulging this “fad” called the Primal/paleo movement. And the critics said we wouldn’t last. Ha! I find it extremely gratifying that new people are jumping on board, questioning conventional ...