Showing posts with label articles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label articles. Show all posts

Thursday, August 9, 2012

"An Argument In Defense of A More Paleo Life Style"

The Successful Domestication of Man

http://www.articlesbase.com/culture-articles/the-successful-domestication-of-man-5820538.html

A dog is usually happy with life and loyal to his or her Master, not even seeming to recognize their lack of freedom. The dog has been bred to serve man for thousands of years, and the Master takes the dog for granted. The dog expects the Master is watching, waiting to give praise, orders, or reprimand, and the dog is grateful. The dog doesn't know how to survive in Mans' world without him, for Man knows what's best, and he provides purpose. The Master is accepted with adoration, respect, and appreciation. For the dog the Master gives meaning to life, and for the dog ignorance is truly bliss.

What enslaves Humanity? What can people not live without? How can we be free? These questions are very important but for many the answers are not so simple.

"Sure must be a great consolation to the poor people who lost their stock in the late crash to know that it has fallen in the hands of Mr. Rockefeller, who will take care of it and see it has a good home and never be allowed to wander around unprotected again. There is one rule that works in every calamity. Be it pestilence, war, or famine, the rich get richer and poor get poorer. The poor even help arrange it."

By Will Rogers
Diary of America

If the poor can be guided in a particular direction, they can be trained to unknowingly provide the means of making the rich richer, and even be thankful for this. There was an evangelical preacher whose soul message was "money is good and God intended for all Christians to be rich", this was the message in a nut shell. The preacher paced himself when delivering his message, and he even had intense music being played with which his preaching seemed to keep rhythm. By the end of the message he seemed to have everyone there convinced that the more money they brought up to the stage for him and his ministry the more money God would bless them with for giving out of the goodness of their hearts. People rushed to the stage and soon there were piles of cash at the preachers' feet. The whole process seemed so simple... How much more is this simple method applied to the masses on a far greater scale? A society full of sheep naturally entices the wolves. What this preacher did is being done by those who have been wealthy for generations. There are those who know the game quite well, and they have even made the rules for how the game is played. Those who do not know the rules of the game may live a happy life spent with family and friends. They openly accept the label of being middle class or blue collared as a stamp of honor, and they live faithful lives at times being thankful for what they do have.

"People will try to convince you of their beliefs and convictions because it reinforces their beliefs and convictions. If a belief and conviction needs something to reinforce it, then it can't stand on its own. Choose to remove erroneous beliefs and temper your convictions with facts and NOT supposition. Then, and only then, will you be able to understand Divine truth."

Professor Dean A. Banks

Some of the elite in society will try to convince us of certain beliefs and convictions which they do not believe in. They will do this so as to reinforce their agenda. If they can persuade you into seeing things in the way they want you to, then you can be led by them willingly and unknowingly. By habit, or ritual people are more likely to listen to what the wealthy have to say before they'll listen to someone who is poor or middle class; because of this mindset certain beliefs are allowed to form which shouldn't be able to stand. The fact that we cannot survive right now and provide for a family without oil, electricity, and plenty of money is the evidence in how the wealthy control the masses.

"If we choose to remove erroneous beliefs and temper our convictions with facts and not supposition, then, and only then, will we be able to understand Divine truth."

To solve any problem or to discover the cause, the proven method is to go to the foundation of the quandary. What commodity do people feel they need much of today, which in reality we shouldn't need at all? Let's try looking back at the origin of the black gold rush, or more so those who started the significant expansion of the oil industry. The world's first billionaire was John Davison Rockefeller, America's most generous philanthropist. Rockefeller's wealth was based largely on the near global control of oil refining. It's documented and well known how he also had large interests in other monopolies. As the economist Anthony Sutton notes, Rockefeller "controlled the copper trust, the smelters trust and the gigantic tobacco trust, in addition to having influence in some Morgan properties such as the U.S. Steel Corporation as well as in hundreds of smaller industrial trusts, public service operations, railroads and banking institutions. National City Bank was the largest of the banks influenced by Standard Oil-Rockefeller, but financial control extended to the U.S. Trust Co. and Hanover National Bank [and] major life insurance companies - Equitable Life and Mutual of New York" (Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, 1981). Johns' descendents are said to have been hardworking German immigrants, and his father, William Avery Rockefeller, was a travelling salesman, rumored to have excelled as a con man. He sold bogus products to the sick and desperate, being able to convince many to buy expensive remedies that were either useless or downright dangerous. "He would be gone for months and come back with a great roll of money.... He would go to small towns advertising himself as 'The Celebrated Dr. Levingston.' William announced he could cure anything, but made a specialty of cancer and kidney troubles." (MacDonald, "Double Life," New York World, February 2, 1908). John Rockefeller, learned all he needed to from his father, and he dropped out of high school in 1855 to take a business course. John was motivated and soon he was ready to take on the world.

John watched the trends, recognizing the predictability and gullibility of humanity. He was inspired by what he saw, and his vision was forming; a vast vision which seemed to have no limit. The Civil War compelled him into the oil business in 1863. John along with others from wealthy families, like J.P. Morgan- paid $300 to avoid conscription; a small price to pay, while thousands less fortunate died in the war. (Of course this is one of the rules to the game though; the wealthy make wars, or support them, and they benefit financially while the young and poor die fighting for what they view as a just cause. Like a loyal servant to his or her Master, many brave people die for a lie.) John sold whiskey at inflated rates to Federal soldiers during the onset of the war. He invested his profits into oil refineries next. The South was supplying turpentine to the North for camphene-fueled lights. When the war cut off the North's access to this fuel, kerosene from Pennsylvania oil quickly took over as the lamp fuel of choice and stimulated Johns' oil business... John was young, but he knew the rules of the game, he was able to control people and situations to his advantage.

John and a few partners organized The Standard Oil Company in 1870, with capital of $1 million dollars. This company was built through him 'buying out competitors, price cutting and controlling secondary businesses related to pipelines, trains, oil terminals and barrel making.' By 1880, his monopoly controlled the refining of 95% of America's oil. In a few years 70% of Standard Oil's sales were overseas, largely to northern Europe and Russia. The properties were merged into the Standard Oil Trust with an initial capitalization of $70 million, and by 1900 Rockefeller controlled about two-thirds of the entire world's oil supply. John was also a director of the U.S. Steel Corp when it formed in 1901. John used a commodity like oil to conquer the world; he helped make dead dinosaur ooze into a valued product which people would fight for and invest millions into.

Many people looked up to John Rockefeller, many admired him and saw him as a generous person, and many felt they needed him in their lives. He knew what the world needed, or so this is what many believed. He cared for the betterment of humanity, and was one of the most generous philanthropists the world has known. He provided thousands with jobs, eventually millions, and he provided oil to all who needed this. Eventually people were more dependent on oil than any other commodity. After a few generations the habit was ingrained into humanity, almost to the point where one might say they seemed to need oil, (and what oil provided), as much as one needed water.

Was in 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court had Rockefellers' monopoly dissolved into about three dozen companies. Many of these oil companies are household names today like Chevron (Standard Oil California), Amoco (Standard Oil Indiana), Mobil (Standard Oil New Jersey) and Exxon, (Standard Oil New Jersey). Rockefeller still profited from this change and the loss of his monopoly, and his decedents still profit today. Today oil is the number one source of profit for the most wealthy and elite in society. Even though we have the technological means of running vehicles and other machines on something other than fossil fuel we do not. In the year 2012 humans still rely on oil, but the only reason this is still the case is because the rich are not ready for change, not as long as they still profit.

People are bred to feed the greed of a select few; we were domesticated thousands of years ago. Before the rise of the Rockefeller dynasty and the prevailing commodity of oil there were others like John Rockefeller, those who used the rules of the game to change the way the masses reasoned. They planted the seeds of persuasion, which grew from generation to generation. The game had been used before with bronze, silver, gold, and other precious stones and minerals, where even the Ages of man were defined by the reining commodity of the time. The idea of these commodities being of immense value and greatly desired was a seed planted by the Masters, something the wolves used to enslave humanity.

The wild is free, and the wild is balanced. Back in the days when we were walking alongside other humanoids like Neanderthal and Homo-Erectus, we were aggressive creatures, but physically and intellectually superior to modern day humans. Although we were struggling to survive in a harsh environment and times could be hard, we were free... Today we're more like dogs.
The Dog is a different creature today than his ancestors were over forty thousand years ago. You can see this by looking at the modern Gray Wolf, for based on genetic evidence this is the animal the dog once was. When the wolf was domesticated quite a few physical or morphological changes occurred. The most significant changes happened within only several generations; changes in coat coloration and markings, reduction in overall size, a shorter jaw initially with crowding of the teeth and the shrinking in size of the teeth; a reduction in brain size resulting in changes to cranial capacity (affecting the areas of the brain relating to alertness and sensory processing. The wolf, once becoming a tamed dog, had lost the skills necessary for survival in the wild).

A recent experiment done by the Russian Scientist Dmitry Belyaev has proven just how quickly an animal can evolve under the right circumstances. His research and methods have helped us better understand the domestication of our most loyal servant, the dog. Dmitry wanted to reenact how domestication may have occurred and he did this through the "farm fox" experiment. Wild silver foxes were selectively bred for forty years and the result was more dog-like animals that were friendly towards humans. The domestic elite foxes actually sought out human attention and indulged in human affection after only a human generation. The most fascinating observation by Dmitry Belyaev was the change in physical traits which paralleled the selection for tameness, even though the physical traits were not originally selected for. The once wild silver foxes were giving birth to foxes with floppy ears, spotted or black-and-white coats, tails that curled, and even the barking vocalization and earlier sexual maturity was noticeable; the silver fox was literally turning into a dog.

It was reported by those involved in the experiment, "On average, the domestic foxes respond to sounds two days earlier and open their eyes one day earlier than their non-domesticated cousins. More striking is that their socialization period has greatly increased. Instead of developing a fear response at 6 weeks of age, the domesticated foxes don't show it until 9 weeks of age or later. The whimpering and tail wagging is a holdover from puppyhood, as are the foreshortened face and muzzle. Even the new coat colors can be explained by the altered timing of development. One researcher found that the migration of certain malanocytes (which determine color) was delayed, resulting in a black and white 'star' pattern." The wild was bred out of the silver fox in such a short time, and the physical changes show a far more vulnerable looking creature; an animal dependent on humanity.

The Cro-Magnon man was different than the modern day man, he even looked different, and like the farm fox in the experiment Man started out wild and free. Cro-Magnon had more meat on his bones; he had broader shoulders and massive muscles. As a general rule science says to control massive muscle blocks, the more brain you need. This may also be partially why the burly Neanderthal had larger brains than modern day Homo-Sapiens. Twenty thousand to thirty thousand years ago the Homo-Sapiens with the biggest brains lived; with his broad chest, larger teeth and strong jaws, Cro-Magnon Man was also brilliant. "Recent studies of human fossils suggest the brain shrank more quickly than the body in near-modern times." Scientists discovered that as the human population rose and societies became more complex the brain started to shrink. When humans didn't have to be as smart to stay alive and they could depend on others supplies to provide for them; their intelligence decreased. The Cro-Magnon man became the Homo-Sapiens we are today because we've domesticated ourselves, according to Richard Wrangham, a primatologist at Harvard University. He notes on how every domesticated animal has lost about ten to fifteen percent of brain volume when compared with their wild progenitors. Wrangham also points out the physical changes. Homo-Sapiens today have slighter builds than the Cro-Magnon, as well as smaller teeth, and smoother faces; equivalent of the floppy ears and curled tails on the transformed foxes or gray wolves. The humans who live today have had much of the aggression from the wild bred out of them, leaving us more susceptible to others ruling over us.

 Today the modern man depends on the wealthier, thus supposed more intelligent individuals to rule over us, instead of the larger and strongest of humans like in ancient times. Ironically the bigger and stronger Cro-Magnon was probably more intelligent than those we consider wise today. What many people today don't realize though is that the wealthiest people today are not always the more intelligent; they simply follow the simple rules to a game which has been passed down to them by their wealthy elders. They rely on the fact that ultimately people today are stupid, and usually not too aggressive to be deemed as threatening.

"The story written in our bones is that we look more and more peaceful over the last 50,000 years," Wrangham says. And that is not all. If he is correct, domestication has also transformed our cognitive style. His hunch is based on studies-many done by his former graduate student Brian Hare-"comparing domestic animals with their wild relatives."

The wealthy elite may have been using the rules to the game passed down for generations but they are not of superior intellect and the evidence is there to be seen. Just looking at our present economy and our nations rising deficit, this shows how those who rule over the masses have a flawed system in place. Those of elite status who ruled over humanity in Roman times they also showed how their system was flawed, as the world fell into the Dark Ages. History is about to repeat herself once again.
In Utah the NSA (National Security Agency) is constructing a data center unlike any other. The purpose is "to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world's communications sent down through satellites and through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center is scheduled to be running in September 2013." Flowing through its servers and routers will be all forms of communication, including "the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails-parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other personal information from billions will be stored in these near-bottomless databases."

"In the process-and for the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administration-the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the US and its citizens. It has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and look through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. It has created a supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble codes. Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic net." James Bamford (Wired magazine)

Why do we allow this invasion of our privacy? This leach from the NSA is obviously destined to drain what's left of our presumed freedom in America. We are living in a time where humanity accepts such an obvious invasion of privacy and a precursor to the complete visual loss of our freedom. We allow this because the data center is supposed to protect us from future cyber attacks and other terrorist threats. "Some of the elite in society will try to convince us of certain beliefs and convictions... They will do this so as to reinforce their agenda." They feel no guilt in this; simply survival of the fittest. Their agenda is to stay in power and keep the masses feeding the rich. When people live in fear and they grow in ignorance they will desperately trust in those who have power over them. Much of the time we depend on the knowledge of others and their technology for survival in this day, instead of thinking for ourselves. So we'll accept the invasion of privacy, and we will trust those over us, because after all we're not really free today. Ultimately we'll place our trust in the wealthy elite, even though we'll gripe and complain we will depend on our Masters. We will turn to those whom are supposed to have our best interest in mind, because we've been bred to. How many times are we going to insanely stand by as the wealthy elite claim the foul smelling bitter fluid flowing over us is rain? The answer is, time and time again, even till the last of our freedom is taken away.

Some people have the dream of being like the wealthy elite, they dream of being higher on the food chain. So many people go into credit debt, and lose thousands while pretending to be more like the Masters they so admire. People have become creatures of habit and the way we have been living for several generations has proven to be self destructive. Eventually even the wealthy elite will not benefit any longer from the ignorance of man. Thousands die in wars fought in vain, wars which last for years, and only the wealthy truly benefit. People still live for the prearranged dream though, believing wealth buys happiness and peace of mind. They're unable to recognize how all of the material possessions, their dependence on the prized commodity of oil, and the wasted desperate desire of these keeps humanity enslaved.

A man or woman is usually happy with life and loyal to their Master, not even seeming to recognize their lack of freedom. They've been bred to serve a select few over them. They help the Master grow in wealth, being satisfied with the scraps thrown to them from the feast. Humanity expects the Master is watching, waiting to give praise, orders, or reprimand, and we are grateful. We don't know how to survive in the present world without the wealthy elite. We need others in power over us. We accept the Master with adoration, respect, and appreciation. For the dog the Master gives meaning to life, and for the dog ignorance is truly bliss.


Thursday, February 23, 2012

Paleo Muscle Body, Breaking Down What Grass Fed Means for Food

While not an entirely recent phenomenon, more and more ranchers of late seem to be going back to smaller operation ideals, raising their cattle exclusively on grass, from cradle to grave. No grain whatsoever enters the diet at any point.


Consumers often taste a dramatic difference in the flavor profile of the meat, so much so that one beef (grain fed) might not even taste like the other (grass fed). For the less eager to be converted, some might even say that grass fed beef doesn’t taste anything like beef — but the reality is that not only is the meat tastier, it’s also healthier, by virtue of how the cattle have been raised.In this country, we eat a LOT of meat, and much of it goes into high calorie, low-nutritional quality beef for fast food hamburger patties. In order to produce beef for an ever-increasing demand in the marketplace, cattle has been fattened (and fattened quickly) on grain, soy and other things not so natural. But really, cattle want grass. That’s the diet most suited for the animal, and what they’d be eating if humans weren’t working off a different agenda besides what’s best for the animals.


Some Basics of Grass Fed Animal Meat

When the stress on the animals is reduced, along with the pressure to fatten the cattle up for slaughter, the animals tend to live healthier lives while they grow in an organic fashion, at a rate that makes sense. Whether or not it’s directly related, grass fed meat from animals like lamb, buffalo and cattle is more healthy when compared to animals raised on a feed lot. It’s lower in saturated fat and cholesterol, and higher in vitamins like E and C.All in all, raising grass fed animals involves a bit more complexity in the process, as just before slaughter, the diet of the animals needs to be adjusted in order to deliver tender beef to the market place.


For this to happen, cattle ranchers have to take better care of the soil on their ranches, so that pastures are running at an optimal level, providing as much nutrition to the cattle in the last few months.It’s almost like these ranchers are growing excellent grass, the more you find out about the process.


Learn even more at Eat Wild’s Grass Fed Basics page, by Jo Robinson.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Products I highly recommend taking on the Paleo Diet

I feel the difference in my workout sessions since using this combination and the added benefits to my health is another bonus. Here's a link to the main site for additional information and hope these products can help you on this journey for physical well being.

http://www.healthforce.com/home/


Vitamineral Green™ Vital Healing Food™ – 500 Grams (17.6 Ounces) Powder – Version 5.0

A superior, nutritionally dense, therapeutic green superfood
powder which nutritionally supports blood sugar, detoxification, the immune
system, liver, kidneys, blood, bones, colon, pancreas, muscles, brain,
regularity, circulation, and longevity.


“Green foods are perhaps the most healing foods on the planet, and the single most
important addition to a diet you can make. They are foundational. For over 26
years, I have deeply and passionately immersed myself full time into providing
the best possible foundation. My deepest passion is for the earth and all of its
inhabitants to be healed on a core level. Mother Nature gave us the substances
we need for healing. It is my life path duty and my great honor to assemble them for you.


"Compromise is not an option. Hype is nothing. Substance is everything. Vitamineral Green™
is the best possible green food that I can offer."

~ Dr. Jameth Sheridan (D.H.M)


Warrior Food™ Chocolate Phycocyanin - 1000 Grams The Ultimate Protein Supplement!
Complete Protein Plant Based SuperFood Formula for True Warriors!

This is the best protein formula available. Organic • Non Toxic • Vegan • Raw • Hard CoreEasier to absorb and assimilate therefore you need less actual protein.

The Story of Warrior Food™

Unfortunately, sports “nutrition” products usually have nothing to do with actual health. They are notoriously unhealthy, many of them downright toxic – ultimately contributing to a Warrior’s demise. I am a Naturopath and herbal medicine researcher, and have embraced a hard-core healing lifestyle for 26 years, during which I have seen people who had healthy looking physiques degenerate and die much too soon (or suddenly) due to their toxic diet, lifestyle, and supplements. NOT ANYMORE. I have vowed to change that, and it begins here. Warrior Food™ enhances your physical appearance and your performance, without sacrificing your health, or your ethics. 100% high performance complete protein/amino acid profile! 100% Raw! 100% Vegan! Regardless of your diet, lifestyle and ethics, whether you are a professional athlete or a “weekend warrior,” this is the best performing protein supplement you can buy (with phytonutrient benefits way beyond isolated proteins).

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Paleo Food Guide line

Here is a helpful guide & basic break down of the foods required in the Paleo lifestyle. There are a lot of books out there that can confuse what is apart of this diet. Don't read into everything too much, just know there are options to those food favorites out there you may have grown accustomed too; Remember, it's a lifestyle not a trend.

Lean Meats

Lean beef (trimmed of visible fat)
Flank steak
Top sirloin steak
Extra-lean hamburger (no more than 7% fat, extra fat drained off)
London broil
Chuck steak
Lean veal
Any other lean cut
Lean pork (trimmed of visible fat)
Pork loin
Pork chops
Any other lean cut

Lean poultry (white meat, skin removed)

Chicken breast
Turkey breast
Game hen breasts

Eggs

Chicken (go for the enriched omega 3 variety, if possible)
Duck
Goose

Other meats

Rabbit meat (any cut)
Goat meat (any cut)

Organ meats

Beef, lamb, pork, and chicken
livers
Beef, pork, and lamb
tongues
Beef, lamb, and pork
marrow
Beef, lamb, and pork
“sweetbreads”

Game meat

Alligator
Bear
Bison (buffalo)
Caribou
Elk
Emu
Goose
Kangaroo
Muscovy duck
New Zealand cervena deer
Ostrich
Pheasant
Quail
Rattlesnake
Reindeer
Squab
Turtle
Venison
Wild boar
Wild turkey

Fish

Bass
Bluefish
Cod
Drum
Eel
Flatfish
Grouper
Haddock
Halibut
Herring
Mackerel
Monkfish
Mullet
Northern pike
Orange roughy
Perch
Red snapper
Rockfish
Salmon
Scrod
Shark
Striped bass
Sunfish
Tilapia
Trout
Tuna
Turbot
Walleye
(Any other commercially available fish)

Shellfish

Abalone
Clams
Crab
Crayfish
Lobster
Mussels
Oysters
Scallops
Shrimp

Fruit

Apple
Apricot
Avocado
Banana
Blackberries
Blueberries
Boysenberries
Cantaloupe
Carambola
Cassava melon
Cherimoya
Cherries
Cranberries
Figs
Gooseberries
Grapefruit
Grapes
Guava
Honeydew melon
Kiwi
Lemon
Lime
Lychee
Mango
Nectarine
Orange
Papaya
Passion fruit
Peaches
Pears
Persimmon
Pineapple
Plums
Pomegranate
Raspberries
Rhubarb
Star fruit
Strawberries
Tangerine
Watermelon
All other fruits

Vegetables

Artichoke
Asparagus
Beet greens
Beets
Bell peppers
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Cabbage
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celery
Collards
Cucumber
Dandelion
Eggplant
Endive
Green onions
Kale
Kohlrabi
Lettuce
Mushrooms
Mustard greens
Onions
Parsley
Parsnip
Peppers (all kinds)
Pumpkin
Purslane
Radish
Rutabaga
Seaweed
Spinach
Squash (all kinds)
Swiss chard
Tomatillos
Tomato (actually a fruit, but most
people think of it as a vegetable)
Turnip greens
Turnips
Watercress
Encouraged Foods

Nuts and Seeds

Almonds
Brazil nuts
Cashews
Chestnuts
Hazelnuts (filberts)
Macadamia nuts
Pecans
Pine nuts
Pistachios (unsalted)
Pumpkin seeds
Sesame seeds
Sunflower seeds
Walnuts

Thursday, February 9, 2012

The Paleo Diet for Bodybuilders

The Paleo Diet for Bodybuilders

Author: Jeb Roberts, MA; Illustrations: Mark Collins
http://www.musclemag.com/Nutrition-and-Supps/Articles/The-Paleo-Diet-for
-Bodybuilders.aspx

Burn fat faster while sparing muscle tissue - and potentially live a
longer, healthier life - by looking to the past for a new approach to
performance nutrition.

Fat-loss diets are hardly known for their staying power. While
bodybuilders have spent the past century carving out a slow, steady path
to building muscle and cutting fat through eating clean, unprocessed
foods, the rest of society has scrambled from one fad to the next,
taking its nutritional cues from greedy gurus and Special K commercials,
all while getting fatter, slower and more disease-prone with each
passing year. But one "trend," called Paleo by its diehard followers, is
cutting a swath of long-term fat loss and enhanced muscle building
through the fray of useless dietary fads, and its secret is that it's
not new at all. In fact, it's as old as our genes.

According to current anthropological evidence, the human genome has
remained fairly steady for the past 120,000 years. That means that if
you travelled back in time to the last ice age and carved a caveman out
of a glacier, he'd be pretty much genetically identical to us. He'd have
the same capacity for language and advanced mathematics, and he'd have
the same dietary needs. If you think of those 120,000 years of human
existence as a 100-yard football field, for almost the entire length of
the field, humans were Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, eating primarily
meat, with some vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. In fact, it's only
in the last 10,000 years (less than the last 10 yards of that field)
that humans have become reliant on modern agriculture and its Neolithic
staples of grains, legumes and dairy. And according to the latest
anthropological research, it's also during these last 10,000 years that
we've become significantly shorter, fatter, less muscular and more prone
to disease.
 
Paleo in a Nutshell

In the simplest sense, the paleo diet cuts out grains, legumes and
dairy, each of which purportedly contains toxic elements that fatten our
physiques and shorten our lives, and encourages consumption of meat -
lots of it - along with plenty of vegetables and some fruits, nuts and
seeds. In other words, if you can kill it or forage for it, bon
appetite. But while many see the Paleo diet as a way to live longer and
avoid modern scourges like obesity, diabetes, cancer and cardiac
disease, athletes in particular have been experimenting with Paleo
nutrition as a way to lean out and build muscle with greater efficiency.


Given these tendencies, it should come as no surprise that the Paleo
diet offers benefits for the bodybuilder. And no Paleo proponent is
better equipped to customize this ancestral diet for the bodybuilder's
needs than former research biochemist Robb Wolf, CSCS, author of the New
York Times best-selling book, The Paleo Solution (Victory Belt, 2010).
When Robb isn't traveling the globe promoting performance-enhancing
nutrition or giving talks at NASA to help astronauts combat the
muscle-wasting effects of space travel, he's training world-class
athletes, including MMA fighters and pro football players, at his Chico
(CA) gym, NorCal Strength and Conditioning, which was recently named one
of America's top 30 gyms.

"You can look at the Paleo diet in two ways," Robb says. "One is that
it's a diet completely focused on unprocessed or very minimally
processed foods. And the other piece is that when we look at foods that
we theoretically co-evolved with over millions of years - lean meat,
seafood, roots, tubers, fruits and vegetables - relative to Neolithic
staples like grains, legumes and dairy, we tend to get much more
nutrition per calorie."

Scratch any notions you may have of weak, scrawny evolutionary ancestors
cowering in caves and scrounging for root vegetables. While our
ancestors may have shared our genes, paleo advocates point to evidence
of them being significantly taller, leaner and beefier than us because
of the foods they ate. "Our Paleolithic ancestors were very fit, very
strong, and carried good amounts of muscle," Robb says. So why are we
and our Neolithic brethren shorter and chubbier by comparison? Most of
that answer, according to Robb and other paleo adherents, boils down to
a protein called gluten, which is found in many of our staple grains.

Against the Grain

While animals may be armed with natural defenses - from teeth and claws
to heightened senses and the ability to outrun most predators - it's
easy to assume that the plants we consume are docile, harmless and eager
to be eaten. But the truth is, most plants - including grains - have
chemical defenses that are just as dangerous as any pair of claws, and
most are constantly engaged in chemical warfare with one another and
with anything that hopes to make a meal of them.

While this is no secret to people with a gluten-based autoimmune
disorder known as celiac disease, you may be surprised to learn that all
humans are at least mildly susceptible to the damage gluten causes. The
perpetrators of this damage are lectins, phytates and protease
inhibitors, and together they limit protein and mineral absorption while
inflicting a severe inflammatory response, which Robb likens to poison
oak in your intestinal lining. "Because of the gut-inflaming elements
found in grains, they tend to cause inflammation in the digestive tract
that gets transmitted to the rest of the body," Robb says. "Whenever we
have inflammation, we tend to retain water. That's why you see a lot of
contest-prepping bodybuilders instinctively migrating away from
wheat-containing carb sources and opting more for potatoes and rice. And
when we pull out the rice and the corn and we stick with yams and sweet
potatoes, we find that people have much less inflammation throughout
their bodies and retain less water in total."

As you might imagine, all of this gut irritation severely limits the
amount of nutrients you're absorbing, and that holds especially true for
protein, says Robb. "When you're putting a premium on literally every
gram of muscle that you have, digestive efficiency is going to be huge.
It's not just an issue of how much food you stuff down your pie hole -
it's a matter of how much nutrition you actually get into your body. And
if we remove these gut-irritating foods, we tend to get much better
absorption."

And if that's not enough, inflammation also impacts your immune system,
subsequently impairing your ability to recover from heavy training and
build muscle, to say nothing of its relationship to modern-day diseases.
"This systemic inflammation and the resulting overactivity of the immune
system throughout the body is an issue in everything from Parkinson's to
Alzheimer's to cardiovascular disease," Robb insists. "And it's
especially important for bodybuilders because their recovery is
predicated on immune function. The better functioning your immune
system, the better you can recover, and the quicker you can get back in
the gym and lift heavy again."

The Other Offenders

While grains and their lectin weaponry may be the main culprit, other
Neolithic staples - namely legumes, dairy, sugar and processed vegetable
oils - have the same kind of gut-irritating and inflammation-promoting
properties. "Legumes have similar anti-nutrients - similar lectins - to
gluten, and all of them affect different people in different ways, but
in general we find that people tend to do better without them," Robb
says. Naturally, that means all soy products and peanuts - yes, peanuts
are a legume - are off the table.

While no one will question the importance of cutting sugar, eliminating
processed vegetable oils may raise some eyebrows. After all, they've
been touted by government guidelines for the past four decades as
healthy cooking alternatives because of their high polyunsaturated fat
content. The problem is, the bulk of that fat comes from omega-6
polyunsaturates, and humans evolved to eat an approximately 1:1 ratio of
omega-6s to omega-3s. Throw off this ratio too far in favor of omega-6s
and the results, yet again, are systemic inflammation and reduced
recovery.

Ditching dairy may be another hard sell - particularly for hard gainers.
But Robb thinks there's a way around it. "The dairy is kind of a gray
area," he explains. "If you can get grass-fed dairy, it wouldn't be much
of a problem. But because we grain-feed our cows, we concentrate the
lectins from those grain sources in the milk, so it tends to be just as
pro-inflammatory." Cows, we're finally realizing, evolved to graze on
grass, and they're just as intolerant of gluten as we are, which is an
issue that extends well beyond their milk and right into the meat we
rely on to build and maintain muscle.

The Meat of the Matter

Go back to our evolutionary history, when there were no 24-hour produce
markets brimming with brightly colored fruits and vegetables gown
hundreds of miles away and ripened on trucks before making their way to
your table. The bottom line is that most of what we think of as dietary
staples are purely seasonal, and we didn't have constant - if any -
access to them while our genotype was being hammered out. So what made
up the bulk of our year-round diet? Meat, say most anthropologists.

The problem is, the meat sources we co-evolved with were drastically
different from the cellophane-wrapped cuts at your local supermarket,
and what our food eats is just as important to our health as what we
eat. Grass-fed beef, it turns out, contains the ideal 1:1 ratio of
omega-3s and omega-6s, not to mention plenty of CLA, which helps with
fat loss and can decrease insulin resistance. The polyunsaturated fat in
grain-fed meat, on the other hand, comes mostly from omega-6 fatty
acids, meaning it's another sure-fire recipe for inflammation.

None of this should suggest that our ancestors ate nothing but meat, of
course, but protein played a major role in our evolutionary development.
As Robb points out, "The reconstructed human diet looks a lot like what
bodybuilders would typically want, which is very high protein, anywhere
from moderate to high fat, and carbohydrate filling in the rest." If the
words moderate to high fat set off an alarm, you're likely not alone.
But Paleo isn't necessarily a high-fat diet. In fact, Robb claims that
it's "macronutrient agnostic," as it focuses on food quality rather than
food quantity. So long as you avoid gut-irritating Neolithic foods, you
can customize your macros (protein, fat and carbohydrate) according to
your body's needs. That said, Robb insists that, based on what he's seen
in his athletes, a higher-fat approach leads to better results both in
terms of performance and body composition. "When people step outside of
the mainstream and start playing with their macros, they find that if
they eat more fat, they feel better, they look better, they perform
better and they recover better. It's kind of a scary proposition when
they're counting calories [fat has 9 calories per gram, whereas protein
and carbs have around 4 calories per gram], but inevitably they end up
with better body composition," he says.

And in case you're worried about the saturated fat in many meat sources
that we've been warned to avoid, Robb urges you to revisit the science.
"As for the whole demonization of saturated fats, there have been
several huge studies recently, and they just can't pin anything on
saturated fat and cardiovascular disease, saturated fat and cancer, or
anything else. They've tried and tried and spent billions of dollars
attempting to prove that saturated fat was a problem, and it's just not
penciling out to be the case." The authors of a recent meta-analysis of
21 studies published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition are
in full agreement with Robb on this last point, as they recently
concluded that no study could associate saturated fat with increased
risk of coronary heart disease, stroke or coronary vascular disease.

Putting Paleo into Practice

As mentioned, paleo is a diet that emphasizes food quality over
quantity, and many of its followers find that once they kick
agricultural staples - mainly grains - to the curb, they're too satiated
to overeat and they lose fat without ever thinking about calories. But
Robb isn't saying you should throw out the scale in your kitchen. "This
is the appropriate place for someone to weigh and measure with paleo,"
he says of the diet's application to bodybuilding. "When we're talking
about an extreme level of leanness, we can keep people leaner during the
offseason because they no longer have a binge-and-purge kind of
scenario. We clean up their food and keep them within striking distance
of their contest prep, and then when it comes time to really shrink-wrap
them down, we bring in the additional attention to detail of weighing
and measuring food and monitoring total caloric intake, and it's easier
because they're already 5-10 pounds out of shape rather than 30-40
pounds out."

For bodybuilders who are leaning out, perhaps the best part of using a
Paleo approach is that you're less likely to lose muscle as you shed
fat. "We've worked with some NFL football players who have some really
impressive body composition - guys who are anywhere from 280-310 pounds
running sub-10% bodyfat - with almost world-champion powerlifting
totals, and we've been able to keep more muscle mass on them using a
Paleo-type approach than with anything else we've tried."

So whether you're prepping for the stage or you're just looking to sport
a six-pack this summer, Paleo offers some pretty striking benefits, from
maintaining more muscle while leaning out to faster, long-term fat loss
with less cardio, not to mention better nutrient absorption and improved
overall health. But even after they hear about these advantages, Robb
admits that many people - especially bodybuilders who've seen slow,
steady success with standard bulking and cutting phases - aren't
motivated to give up the grains, claiming they've never experienced the
gut irritation and inflammation that drive the Paleo approach. "Some
people say they've never had a problem with these foods, but what
they've never done is pull them out of rotation for a good 30 days to
see how they actually do getting their carb sources from yams, sweet
potatoes and maybe a little bit of post-workout fruit to refill liver
glycogen."

For Robb, this 30-day window is critical. Whereas few bodybuilders will
agree to give up whole-grain pasta forever, once they've seen how much
better they feel and look after just one month eating Paleo, they
usually refuse to go back. "If they'll go with a 30-day run and get
their carbs from yams, sweet potatoes, squash and even regular white
potatoes in lieu of the bread, rice and pasta, they definitely notice
less water retention and being less puffy, and this is true regardless
of where they are, whether they're contest-prepping or they're in a
mass-gain cycle. In total, they have less inflammation, so they retain
less water and recover better, and everything they'd want goes in a
favorable direction."

According to Robb and other Paleo adherents, whether you're a
bodybuilder, an elite athlete or simply someone who still wants to be
bounding up stairs when they're 90, Paleo is your best chance for
getting a leg up. "Bodybuilding is definitely pushing the human genetic
potential to the outer edges of hypertrophy expression," he says. But
the ancestral diet can still support that process. You may need to tweak
and fiddle with the details, but it's doable." And even if your only
immediate goals are to build a physique that's composed of as much
muscle as your frame will allow while dipping into low-single-digit
bodyfat, Robb insists that your physique goals don't need to override
your overall health. "Let's push that human performance element as much
as we can, and let's do it in a way that's not completely messing us up"
he adds.

For more of Robb Wolf's views on the paleo diet, visit robbwolf.com.

COMING SOON!

Women on the Paleo Diet & health tips for all body types.