Today, I’ll be talking about the conventional approach to health and wellness compared to an alternative, primal lifestyle… a bit of a part two if you like, following on from my presentation last week, but more focused on nutrition.
Okay, let’s get started.
Last week if you joined me you may recall I spoke about exercise in a conventional view and its pros and cons… compared with taking a primal approach… and the pros and cons and benefits that I’ve experienced from that approach.
It’s a far more intuitive approach and now I listen to my body. I have an idea of what I want to do day to day but there’s no set program that I have to live by.
I also touched on nutrition and how I moved from being a carbohydrate burner to being a fat burner.
So, today I wanted to expand on this a little further and explain how it’s been a massive part of my new lifestyle and why I now feel so much better than I ever have in my whole life.
The Old Diet.
Years ago, I lived on what I thought was a healthy diet,
A typical day’s food for me was
Breakfast… a big bowl of cereal, a couple of slices of toast and a large glass of orange juice.
Morning tea… I was usually feeling hungry by then, so I have might have a fruit bar and usually a piece of fruit with a glass of water… something like that.
Lunchtime came around and I was usually quite hungry by this time. So, it would be nothing for me to put away a couple of salad sandwiches with a bit of sliced meat and fruit juice, piece of fruit, with a small fun sized chocolate bar as a bit of a treat,
Mid-afternoon came around and I was usually on the run so I’d just have a quick banana or something… just to keep me going.
I was always ravenous by dinner time, always starving and typically dinner was meat and three veg, a bread roll and ice cold beer to top it off.
And for dessert… a bit of ice cream, maybe a home cooked muffin, or a bit of fruitcake, something like that…
and then supper… I was still going, I was still hungry trying to fill up and might have another piece of fruit and a cup of tea just to finish off my day.
And that was a fairly typical day for me – day in day out,
And in and amongst it, obviously, there was dining out here and there and a few other bits and pieces.
The Ramification
So, if we understand that and break it down a little bit more, when we eat foods that are high in carbohydrates, such as breads, pasta, biscuits, soft drinks, fruit juice, things that I used to eat a lot of as I just explained, our body breaks these down into separate nutrients, one of course is glucose,
Our bodies are able to cope with a small amount of glucose, a little in exercise, a bit in our system for a while, and we store a bit in our muscles and our liver but our bodies were never designed to process massive amounts of glucose from this type of food day in day out… as I was eating and a lot of other people do as well, I know.
High levels of glucose in our system are toxic and this then requires us to produce massive amounts of insulin from our pancreas to help transport and circulate the glucose around our body.
Down the line this type of diet can lead to developing resistance to insulin because a lifetime of excess insulin production can lead us down to a whole range of metabolic diseases and type-2 Diabetes.
As I said, initially for me a change from this diet as a result of being forced to do it, looking at all sorts of alternatives to try to get myself well, trying to reduce the obesity that I had grown into from my lifestyle and also my chronic disease, eliminating grains, sugar, processed food and processed oils was a huge shock.
One of the first things that I struggled with was “what is left”, and yes it does take a while for us to get our heads around it… to understand what it is and what it means.
Fortunately, my wife and my family have been massive supporters of me and my new lifestyle, and that has been so beneficial… to help me take it on during a period of illness as I said, and then continue it for years following that, to the point where this is what I’m coaching day-in day-out.
The New Diet
So, a typical diet for me now is
Breakfast… bacon and eggs or an omelet, something like that
Morning tea… a cup of coffee with maybe a handful of macadamia nuts and
Lunch could be a bit of leftover vegetables, some cold meat from the night before that type of thing. I might have some salad and some tinned fish and I might finish off with a piece of fruit or piece of chocolate.
And all the while with these meals, I’m no longer hungry, I’m no longer starving and ravenous and looking for that next feed to top up as I used to do in the past… something that I really, really struggled with.
And in the past if I didn’t eat regularly I’d find myself becoming really grouchy… moody. I’d often get headaches and feel run down and bit lightheaded.
So you see, it’s a massive, massive change from the previous diet, a high carbohydrate diet, to what I now have, as I said, a high healthy fat diet.
Following on
Afternoon tea might be a cup of decaffeinated organic coffee.
I always finish my coffee by about lunchtime and make sure that I have no caffeinated coffee after lunch just to help me wind down at the end of the day and to help me sleep.
I might have a snack, I might have some almonds or a bit of almond butter on some carrot or some fruit. Something a little different.
And dinner is meat and two veg, I’ve always been a meat and three veg person, and I might finish up with a little bit of trail mix, maybe a little bit of unflavoured Greek yogurt… and that’s pretty much it.
So, my day’s food consumption has reduced, and as I said, I don’t get hungry, I don’t get ravenous and I don’t have the big fluctuations of energy, up and down up and down like I used to have,
The Comparison.
In the past, that previous diet got me through to about lunchtime and after that I’d have a big feed for lunch and then I’d be tired, I’ll be rundown, I’d be feeling a little flat by mid-afternoon, I’d need a top-up… and that was my body saying, “you’ve burnt the glucose fuel from carbohydrates, you need to top me up again because I need a bit more of that quick energy”.
The carbohydrate diet is predominantly that, it’s short bursts of quick energy, in and out, in and out continuously.
A healthy high-fat diet which I eat now, give’s a far more consistent, even flow of energy and as I’ve worked through it I’ve reprogrammed my genes, so that now my body doesn’t know if it’s looking for fat for energy from my body or from the food I’ve eaten and so it just continues along the way and it’s a far, far more pleasant way to live,
My whole day, my whole week, my whole month, is not just moving from one meal to the next and the next, it’s far more consistent and I’ve developed a much more enjoyable love of food.
In the past I found I’d cover my food in sauces and toppings and all these sort of things and I kind of lost the taste for good food, and that for me has all come back again and it’s a great experience, it really is.
So, that was a typical day,
I find I can easily skip a snack, as I said I don’t feel hungry between meals, if I’m busy or I don’t have enough good-quality food around for a meal, I can skip it without any worries.
The Result
The primal diet that I live on, which is high fat, very low carb (and then only healthy carbs), and medium protein, requires my body to produce far less insulin than a high carbohydrate diet… and so my body has become much more insulin sensitive, which is a good thing. That’s a very, very positive thing for maintaining a long, happy, healthy life and lifestyle… which is what I want to do for myself and that I’m doing for my clients and I’m getting some fantastic results.
As I said, my energy flow and how I feel throughout the day is far more consistent,
I don’t have the spikes up and spikes down, I’m not feeling tired and fatigued mid-afternoon and sometimes mid-morning as well, just from everyday living.
I’m feeling great most of the times, rather than just feeling great sometimes,
My mind is much, much clearer, much, much sharper… and I’m feeling fitter, leaner and stronger than I ever have before… ready to live life and enjoy life and do the things that I want to do for today and for years to come.
If you’d like to talk more about lifestyle coaching, drop me a line and we can have a chat.
I’m Rod from sports adventure, thanks again, I hope you’ve had a great experience today, as I said I really enjoy bringing this information to you. I love this stuff, I live by it, I don’t coach anything that I don’t live-by myself and that’s how I’ve transformed my life and the lives of others as well.
Thanks for your time, have a great day.