Advice for Healthy New Year's Resolutions

It's easy to finish the year incredibly determined to start the next one off on the right foot. January is the busiest month for gym memberships. It shouldn’t be surprising that when it comes to New Year’s Resolutions, those relating to health and fitness represent the majority of declarations. Here are some of the more interesting statistics on New Year’s resolutions are taken from Details and Statisticbrain. Thankfully, the internet makes it pretty easy to request, gather, organise and analyse social data of this nature.:

• 45% of people make New Year's resolutions
• 1 in 3 people ditch theirs by the end January
• 2 in 3 people who make resolutions include health as a goal
• 73% give up before meeting their goal
• 21% resolve to lose weight and this is the most common resolution (improve finance and getting organised round out the top 3)

Why New Years makes for a such an appropriate time for prompting health and fitness changes makes a lot of sense. People like timelines and our brains function according to schedules, times and dates for substantial events. It's important however to remember that health and well being isn't a short term ideal. All the “new year new YOU!” motivation in the world doesn't mean much if it doesn't last but a couple of months. The star that burns brightest often burns out fastest. It would be great to lose 10kg in 10 weeks and just worry about the long term as it approaches, but without that big picture mindset, it'll be difficult to ever get where you truly want to be which is a self-sustaining long lasting lifestyle approach health and wellness.

It's not about being on a diet or losing weight as much as it is about being healthy. That being said, there aren't many times where turning over a new leaf by making some widespread goal orientated lifestyle changes is better sparked than the new year. Here are some things to keep in mind when putting together your New Year’s resolution.

New year, new you!

Some things may have to be drastic

Deciding on what aspects of your new lifestyle should be jumped into with both feet as opposed to a slow transition can be quite difficult. That being said, while easing into healthier eating or exercise may seem smoother and more comfortable, it’s important to respect the difficulties temptation and convenience bring to the table. WIll power is an area of academic study gaining a lot of attention lately. While willpower and determination are inherent traits which cannot be concretely quantifiable, there is an increasing body of psychological and sociological research discovering that willpower is limited in strength.

The American Psychological Association explains that willpower is like combination of skill and physical capacity. Willpower can be learned and developed the same way cardiovascular endurance, or reading efficiency can be improved as well. However, the most pertinent aspect of this is that willpower depletes as it is tested. In other words, the more temptations and conveniences you have around you, the more your reserves of willpower are taxed and your self-control weakened. Keeping sugary treats or coupons for fast food around increase the likelihood of broken diets in the short term and drastically weaken the long-term success of any healthy lifestyle change.

As uncomfortable or wasteful as it may seem, it therefore may be the best thing in the long term, to go through a dramatic kitchen cleanse and get rid of all highly processed, carb-rich foods, pre-packaged sugar sweets, and toxic convenience-meals and snacks. If you don’t see them, you don’t need to rely on self-control to not eat them.

Regarding exercise, the notion of self-control can also be aided by including others into your plans. The peer-pressure effect of obligation has shown to work wonders for helping people commit to their workout plans. Rather than rely on your own willpower to go to workout on your own, not wanting to bail on a friend or trainer, or waste a membership you’ve already paid for can be a powerful motivator.

Some things can be eased into

Where some things should be made drastic as discussed above, others should be eased into to prevent yourself from feeling bad for falling short. Missing a gym session isn’t really that detrimental if overall, you’ve been living a more active lifestyle by walking more, opting for the stairs rather than the elevator, and taking the kids to the park, and playing with them, rather than spending the afternoon in front of a screen.

Likewise, and this is a big one for me personally, healthy eating doesn’t have to be 100%. Christmas season just ended, which means there are plenty of people out there, that despite all the willpower in the world, practical circumstances made it near impossible to perfectly adhere to their usual healthy eating regimen. The same can be said for times of illness, emotional distress, the busy times at work, or any of the million other situations people find themselves in where they have less time, energy or motivation to exercise perfect discipline.

This means that, the goal, shouldn’t be to perfection or strictness with your new healthy lifestyle. When enjoying unhealthy holiday treats, or satisfying a fast food craving because of a crazy work period, do just that - enjoy it. Embrace the momentary lapse in wholesome living as just that - momentary - enjoy it, be mindful of what it means for your gut, temperament, energy levels and the rest of your body, and move on. Full awareness, no guilt. You’ll pick back up, when you can. It’s far too easy to let things go at the start of december with first offering of rum balls and shortbread, and to go from there, to a guilt-induced over-dramatic New Years resolution after 4 weeks of chocolate, cake and hot cocoa.

Tracking your activity and progress is handy, but there's not real finish line to healthy living.

Emphasise actions over results

While being goal-orientated is often a positive way to tackle new challenges, it’s important to remember that being fit and healthy doesn’t involve an end goal. Declarations such as “lose 10kg” may be a useful way to track and measure success, but the actions that bring that result about are what are more significant.

In other words, if “lose 10kg” or “fit into this size jeans” is the goal you have mind, it may lead to a lack of satisfaction or motivation once that goal is reached. Instead, frame your goals around the actions you want to make in the new year. Rather than run 5k, focus your motivation on running weekly. While bench pressing your body weight may be the ultimate check box you’re out to complete, improving or establishing a better chest routine may add a deeper angle to your workouts.

The main difference is in the approach. A smart and measurable goal makes it easier to judge success - am I swimming every week or not? Anyone with an organisational, logical or business-orientated mind can see obvious benefits in this. However, how absolute this approach is can cause motivational problems. After 3 weeks of missing your weekly swim, the logic that made the resolution so sound, actually adjusts to make bailing on the goal of hitting the pool every week seem more reasonable. There’s no point in telling yourself you’ll do something you just can’t at the moment because of work, illness, laziness or whatever other balls that spontaneously are added to those we have to juggle.

Instead, reframing the resolution to be more flexible, action-based and focused on the lifestyle change avoids these traps. A 3 week stint of not being able swim because of a hectic schedule isn’t as detrimental if the goal is simply to swim more often. While “swim more” may sound vague, and harder to track, than “swim 30 minutes each week”, it definitely allows for more an open ended pursuit of a healthier lifestyle. At its simplest angle, unless you’re perhaps a competitive swimmer, or signing up for a charity team-triathlon, warranting a dedicated swimming program, any measurable benchmark may be irrelevant. For the average person, the overall goal isn’t to swim every week, it probably isn’t even to swim more, but is really just to be more active, and stay more active for an undetermined amount of time - as long as possible. Focusing your attention on the action, may allow you to forget about the measurable checkboxes and instead make the balanced, diverse and varied adjustments to your life, as you live it.

A summary and example

First, depending on where you’re starting point is, some changes you make to move toward a healthier lifestyle may need to be drastic. Keeping these simple and visibly identifiable helps. Large one-off prompts may help jolt you into action and relieve you of conflicting engagements or taxing bouts of willpower.

Second, it’s important not to go overboard with too many deliberate and quantifiable goals. Life is complicated for most people which mean that meeting rigidly planned commitments can be near, or literally impossible in the complicated juggling that goes on. Feeling like a failure and then giving up, can often make the tactile goal more trouble than it’s worth.

Lastly, focusing on the actions rather than end-results serve to stabilise any changes you make. Even though benchmarks can make progress tracking easier and provide a nice sense of achievement, they can make thinking long-term aspirations difficult and when it comes to adopting healthier practices, the long-term is really all that matters.

In our house, we’re in the process of increasing our intake of quality animal products - namely bone broth and fatty meats. The commitment to going shopping almost every other day in pursuit of fresh, local and wholesomely produced food is a pretty big step and has taken some serious adjustment regarding how we plan our days. Trying to lift weights more is a slight yet high-impact adjustment we’re trying to make. Gym memberships have been paid for, but there’s no strict program or class-commitment. Half an hour, twice a week is the loose goal we’re trying to hit as a minimum standard. Sprinting more is the last health related change we’re hoping to make going forward. The killer Australian heat makes it tough for about half the year, so winter has never been a problem, but 4 or 5 100m dashes once or twice a month on average throughout the year seems reasonable to me. Regularly moving at maximum exertion (for short instances) is incredibly beneficial, and far more time efficient.

That’s as far as it goes for in terms of 2016 health resolutions. Three very simple and deliberate changes to make, but neither is set up as a finish line to succeed or fail at reaching. Again, the act of incorporating these into our lives for the long-term is absolutely more important than to what standard we meet these within the next 12 months. Stopping once success is reached to go back to normal is not success at all. Success is establishing a new normal.

According to my Healthy Forever followers, about 50% of people set health and fitness related New Year's resolutions.

Is it healthy? Coffee

What constitutes as healthy, especially in terms of food can be a complex question to ask. It seems that for many foods, there are just as many people professing health benefits as there are proclaiming they'll lead to cancer, obesity, heart disease or dementia. In some cases it's also generational - eggs are healthy, then they're not, now they are again, and the same goes for margarine, rice, milk and dozens of other staple foods. It is not too hard to get people into a heated debate about carbohydrates. This is why so many people become frustrated and apathetic and end up leaning on two superficial sentiments that are wrong, right, superficial and insightful all at the same time.

Everything will kill you

This line falls closer to the apathetic side of the scale. Red meat will give you cancer, not enough meat will lead to iron deficiencies, not enough of certain fats will lead to dementia, grains will lead to diabetes, milk will cause indigestion and skin problems, too much sun will cause skin cancer, and not enough sun will lead to other cancers and mood disorders.

Everything in Moderation

This is the more optimistic view of things. Nothing is entirely healthy or entirely bad for you and therefore you can eat whatever you want as long as your portions are reasonable. It’s very much a common sense approach. Of course, pounding away a litre of ice cream every night or starting every morning off with a few doughnuts is unhealthy. Everyone knows that, but one of the most troublesome realities when it comes to health and nutrition is that many things, aren’t common sense. Green vegetables and almonds are good, and chocolate and colas are bad, but there are many things, where the situation is far more gray than people may realise. What does the research say about the foods with which the health profile isn’t entirely clear and common sense may not apply?

Is coffee healthy?

Coffee is one of the oldest drinks there is, dating back to at least the late 10th century. Like various teas, coffee has been enjoyed historically for centuries stretching from Turkey to Ethiopia. Like most time-tested, ritualistic foods, coffee is said to have been a key meditative, social and stimulating ingredient and therefore highly sought after by empires from North Africa, Persia, Asia and the Middle East.

http://www.hashslush.com/the-right-dose-of-caffeine-for-your-inspiration/

On the one hand, coffee is celebrated for numerous health benefits such as anti-oxidants, containing little calories, and being linked with lower incidence of conditions such as type 2 diabetes and Parkinson’s.  That being said, coffee is often maligned due to caffeine content, as well as high sugar and processing that comes with flavoured drinks lattes, cappuccinos and iced coffees that are popular today. These concerns come on top of the issues of caffeine such as connections to heart attacks, digestive problems and the nature of its addictive properties.

Of course though, it’s important to always remember that nutrition isn’t a scale of good and bad. It’s more of a quantum - foods are optimal in certain situations influenced by season, method of production and preparation and what else they’re consumed with - as well as the amount.

While the concerns around coffee are legitimate, most are associated to flavoured coffees. The processed creams and flavoured syrups from unknown sources are what do the real damage and should be avoided. As for the coffee itself, if taken without sugar or sweeteners, and with local, organic, full-cream milk if not black, coffee lovers should be at peace.

Coffee is the number one source of antioxidants. Research in emerging in 2001 from Harvard’s Nurses Health Study, has built toward the following highlights:

• A 2005 study exploring concerns that too much coffee was bad for blood pressure found no link between higher blood pressure and coffee and found some suggestion that it improved blood pressure.
• Regular coffee drinking was linked in a 2011 Harvard study to lower risk of a deadly form of prostate cancer.
• Also in 2011, a study showed that drinking four or more cups a day lowered the rate of depression among women.
• A 2012 study tied three cups a day to a 20 percent lower risk of basal cell carcinoma.
• A 2013 Harvard study linked coffee consumption to a reduced risk of suicide.
• Also in 2013, a Harvard analysis of 36 studies covering more than a million people found that even heavy coffee consumption did not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and that three to five cups of coffee daily provided the most protection against cardiovascular disease.
• Also in 2014, Harvard Chan School researchers found that increasing coffee consumption by more than a cup a day over a four-year period reduced type 2 diabetes risk by 11 percent.
• The same study showed that those who decreased their coffee consumption by more than a cup a day increased their type 2 diabetes risk by 17 percent.

The overarching theme with almost all food and drink should be the premise that nutrition is a complex quantum of beneficial and hazardous influence. Some foods are absolutely healthy, others are the opposite, but most are not only somewhere in between, but in various areas of this scale depending on the production methods, combinations, and the metabolism and genetic properties of the individual consumer.

So is coffee healthy? Mostly, yes. The fears of caffeine are over exaggerated, and the antioxidant, metabolism, and brain stimulating contents justify this.  Just stay away from heavily sweetened flavoured varieties, and if you’re using milk, make sure it’s local and full-cream.

Full Awareness, No Guilt: Why I don't like "cheat meals"

When following any diet, fitness plan or overall “healthy way of life”, one thing that is inevitable is to meet instances where the opportunity to eat bad food is metaphorically and literally “on the table”. Whether it’s a matter of judgement, willpower, time, social tact, convenience or motivation, there will always be times where we feel like a big slice of lasagne, a bowl of ice cream or grabbing fast food on the way home from work. This is reality.

This is not the enemy

Coal and oil companies hate renewable energy

How widely known is it that ExxonMobil has spent billions over the last 30 years to deliberately discredit the impacts of fossil fuel burning has on global temperatures?  I feel like not enough people are aware of how much coal, oil and gas companies invest in arguing against human influence on climate change. The biggest competitor to these industries are renewable energies and while there are definitely some levels of embrace and innovation within them, a greater portion of corporate muscle goes to suppressing new, cleaner technologies from advancement. In other words, rather than adapt and adopt renewable energy as a new source of capital, older energy companies have chosen to fight.

It has been reported that Exxon was warned about the harm it was doing to the environment and the social and economic ramifications for decades. Source: InsideClimate News

Pulitzer Prize winning publication Insideclimate News has been following litigation related to ExxonMobil's efforts to suppress academic research since the 1980s. Click above for the details, but the short of it is that in the 1970s, Exxon (not Mobil yet) commissioned scientists to look into the impact the burning of fossil fuels had on the environment. Not only did the studies indicate what we know now about human caused CO2 emissions influencing global temperatures, but their own researchers warned them to diversify their energy sources (into renewables) and begin to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. The benefits would be not just to diversify and future-proof their business models, but to avoid contributing to the catastrophic climate related problems of today (drought, food shortages, rising sea levels, water quality and all of the political, social and economic challenges that are occurring as a result). Jumping back into present day and, becoming well known around academic circles, and hopefully becoming more mainstream, is the reality that in the face of sound economic advice and urgent scientific warnings, Exxon chose to confuse the issue in order to defend itself against competition alternatives.

The good news is that they're losing this battle, the bad news is that it's taking so long. Surprise, ripping coal and oil out of the ground and burning it for energy is doing irreversible damage to the environment and are resulting in catastrophic events that are beginning to show themselves in very real, practical way.

Still, with most of the academic and cultural world in agreement on this, there seems to be a new obstacles in the way of focusing resources to the growth and permeation of renewable energy into contemporary society. The new debate centres around the efficiency of renewable energy generation as a whole. There's a strong platform of those that view solar, water and wind power generation to be not as economically viable as fossil fuels. While this may be a valid question - economics and scientific research is currently looking into this - it is still unreasonable for this argument to be use to justify pulling resources away from renewables. Industries built on solar and wind power, not being able to generate as much as coal, or as cheaply as oil, should be viewed as a reason to push more investment behind them rather than less. Economies of scale have not yet been reached for the renewable energy industry which means that future investment will only serve to increase the sector’s efficiency.

The world is trending in the right direction. Recent measures are starting to point to renewables surpassing fossil fuels when it comes to gigawatts produced by new power plants in the United States as noted in the previous link. In Europe, electricity generated by renewable sources has grown by 84% from 2003 to 2013, with the same positive data trends emerging from Asia & Oceania.

The key is to make sure our governments don't let up. The debate has turned from environmental to economic with the argument no longer being against climate change but against "costly" renewable energy in favour of cheaper fossil fuels. As government budgets continue to be tightened and public concerns about costs of living increase,  it's crucial to remember that renewable energy is in its infancy and that gains will be made in increasing scale, rather than stunting investment in favour of old technologies. It's good economics to lead the rush in clean technology from the ground up.

Look beyond guns

If it's not about guns, what is it about?

No country, culture, state or society is perfect. All have their share of problems which are complex, multi-layered, and rooted in history. This is what makes governance and social responsibility so difficult - there is no simple solution. As the details trickle in this morning regarding the shooting at at Oregon's Umpqua Community College, the tragic inhumanity of these events, like clockwork, are cannibalised by the why, how and what now questions which are impossible not to ponder. Why did this happen, how can we stop it and what can we do to prevent them in the future? It's a noble path for the discourse to follow, but almost always, when discussion should be based on socioeconomic policy and how to address and support the most discriminated, impoverished , sick, abused, deranged and neglected people in our society, it's instead narrowly focused on a single topic - the amount of guns Americans can have.

President Obama solemnly addresses the nation urging people to rethink gun culture. Image retrieved from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Whether you believe gun regulation in the US needs to be made freer or tougher, it's important to understand that these shootings, are terrible outcomes of a much wider array of issues and that drawing a circle around guns and claiming that Americans would be either more, or less safe if gun laws changed is so conflicting and complex that the discussion almost becomes moot.

What's more important is for the American public to reflect critically on itself and examine what its government and civilians are doing wrong and make that the conversation. It's reality that these types of tragedies don't happen in other wealthy, democratic, capitalist countries anywhere close to US frequency. Yes, gun provisions are different in America but not only are they just one point of discussion, but they're closer to the outcome of the problem rather than the cause. Focusing only on guns as a solution to violence is akin to looking only to medicine as a solution to poor health.

So what else is there? What are the other issues at the root cause of violent tragedy in America, or any other nation for that matter. Is it mental health? Poor rehabilitation of prisoners? Inefficiencies in law enforcement? Struggling education? Socioeconomic inequality? Any democratic society needs to understand that it's purpose and strength as a democracy is to debate and hold leadership accountable for the incredibly complex problems they face and a democracy can only thrive if it's informed.

Most pro gun Americans are absolutely right in communicating the point that banning guns probably wouldn't work because it's a much more complicated issue than that. But, at the same time, legislating for freer attainment of guns wouldn't all of a sudden keep everyone safe either. Think of a far more universal random crime that occurs in western countries that is still senseless and tragic such as a stabbing, rape or unarmed assault and battery. Would these events be prevented if nearby civilians, the perpatrators, or the victims had firearms on them at the time? Possibly, but the alternative possibility of things being much worse can't be dismissed any easier. Whether guns are present, in and of itself, is irrelevant.

If it's not about guns, it's not about guns. But it has to be about something. The saddest thing (aside from those being harmed of course) is that so many people act as if nothing can be done because these things just happen. Strive to be better, and care for your people. 

What the rest of the world needs to do is be understanding and keep conversation respectful and intelligent. Blaming American gun policy again over simplifies it. Even worse, blaming American gun culture is like implying that they deserve it. Like criticising a rape victim for how much they were dressed.

These are highly complex social issues that are culminating in the worst possible outcome. That outcome cannot be confused with the cause. People are broke, people are starving, people are sick and not getting treated, and people are being abused and not being helped. These are the issues we as people need to dedicate our attention to. They're deeper, more complex and require more voices, understanding and time, but they are what moves a democracy forward. 

Primal Living Part 4 - A typical week in food

Last week in Part 3, comparisons were made between Paleo, Primal and Atkins. It's important to understand the similarities and differences between certain nutrition philosophies. I believe that the commonalities across various plans, research and ideologies can serve as validation of those principles. For example, while sentiment on legumes (+Mark Sisson, creator of the Primal Blueprint explains the issue with beans and legumes here), saturated fats and red meat may differ depending on what you're reading or who you  are talking to, you are very unlikely to find anything that advocates for sugar, highly processed, preservative loaded foods.

The Primal food pyramid according to +Mark Sisson, see MarksDailyApple, or Part 1 for more

I place an incredible amount of value in this idea. While "everything in moderation" may often apply, and although carbohydrate-rich food such as grains may have their value in small doses, reducing your intake of sugar, highly processed and preservative loaded foods as much as you possibly can, the better you will feel and the healthier in body, spirit and mind you will be.

There is no ONE Primal Lifestyle

This is the focus for this week's piece. My favourite aspect of Primal Living is the push for flexibility. As outlined last week, primal isn't a list of foods. It's a set of principles (a fantastic infographic can be found here), and although these may seem like rules, they are not as rigid, ad are instead malleable according to environment, climate, responsibilities and resources relative to each individual person. This may seem like a licence to break rules, but you have to remember that primal is built on Ancestral Health and, what worked for our ancestors thousands of years ago cannot be boiled down to one set of standards. 

A world map showing the origins of the world's indigenous peoples. There was never meant to be one rigid set of foods everyone should be eating.

The foods, levels of activity and sleep patterns varied greatly depending on region. It doesn't take much imagination to understand that the Inca people of South America probably ate differently than the Inuit native to Northern Canada, Scandinavian Vikings, Mongolian conquerors or South Pacific Islanders. All of these groups had different animals, vegetation types, temperature ranges and predators to deal with.So, although all of them had diets rich in animal meats and vegetables, and the occasional seasonal fruit, and spent very little time running at a moderate pace for prolonged periods of time, the specifics of how they lived, would have differed greatly.

This is why it's important to truly be honest and self-aware regarding what works and what doesn't. While it may be easy to use influences such as budget and time as excuses for living a less than optimally healthy life, they key is to genuinely try to make these principles work for you as much as you possibly can.

What a typical week for me looks like

I should preface all of this with a very brief rundown of my daily schedule:

• I wake up at around 5:30 and have "breakfast" around 6:30
• By 7:00 I’m leaving for work (which is about 1km away so I walk)
• I arrive at my desk at around 7:15am
• I’m a high school teacher so that involves a bit of walking from different rooms and buildings. I’m not entirely camped at a desk all day, but I’m not constantly on my feet either.
• Lunch, which is usually my true meal of the day, usually occurs at 11am
• I am usually anywhere between 4:30 and 5:30pm
• Dinner is usually at 6pm
• I try to sleep by 10pm

Most mornings I don't have anything for breakfast other than 1 or 2 cups of coffee. Once upon a time, the notion of skipping "the most important meal of the day" seemed terrifying. I thought for sure this would lead to me dying of starvation by 10am. Easily the most amazing thing I have learned from Primal is the value of fats and the destruction that carbs do in terms of providing energy in the morning. I find that if my meat and vegetables made up most or all of what I ate the night before meaning my protein and fat intake was up to scratch, I really wasn't hungry in the morning, and the coffee (with heavy pure full-of-fat cream) was more than enough until lunch time. 

I just love the inviting warmth of a smooth cup of coffee in the morning. Usually, all I have for breakfast is one cup - sometimes two at around 6:30am. Normally I don't eat until after 11am..

Earlier in the year, I tried a mini experiment on myself and monitored my hunger levels depending on my morning routine. I was literally astonished to discover that, when 10am rolled around, I was hungrier if I had cereal, toast or anything else loaded with carbs, than if I had nothing at all. Obviously, eggs and bacon (or dinner leftovers) eliminated hunger the most, but aside from just not having much time for it, I honestly started to feel full. It works, my body looks to fat for energy consumption and no longer calls for the quick boost carbs offer.  People often ask me, "how are you not starving if you skip breakfast?". To be honest, my answer is simply, "I don't know. I'm just not". Of course, I do know and try to explain , the problem is that it's apparently just too hard to believe for some people.

On days where I have an extra 20 minutes, little is better than scrambled eggs with cheddar and spinach, half an avocado and some free range local bacon rashers.

With breakfast (or lack thereof) out of the way, the rest of the day should be pretty simple to describe. Usually, lunch is the first actual meal I have for the day, and it usually occurs at 11am. I genuinely am a bit hungry by then, but not starving, and on the occasions when I end up having to delay eating another hour or so, it's not really a big deal. Contrast this with people that pound away high-carb foods like cereals, granolas, crackers, biscuits, cookies, noodles, and the like. From my observation, it's pretty common for these people to express extreme hunger even if they've just eaten maybe 2-3 hours prior. Here's an Ancestral line of thought. If our cavemen brethren need to eat something every 2-3 hours, in order to avoid feeling sluggish, headaches, and growling stomachs, would they really be able to survive their historic period?

Anyway, for lunch I usually have a salad made with cos lettuce and spinach, plus a couple of other chopped vegetables - usually cucumber, cherry tomatoes, or capsicum (Australian for red/green/yellow peppers). For protein I chuck in some canned tuna, smoked salmon, or pieces of leftover dinner meat. Dressing will be in the form of some whole-egg mayo, olive oil and various seasoning (dill, or just salt). I also always chuck in a handful of nuts. If I have leftovers from dinner, I go with that, but usually I don't have any leftovers.

A "Big Ass Man's Salad" for my first meal of the day. 11am. Lettuce, spinach, capsicum, cucumber, almonds, cheese, whole egg mayo, crushed garlic, olive oil, avocado, smoked salmon. The 600ml water bottle is just there for perspective.

Dinner will always be some form of meat and vegetable combination. The usual rotation consists of:

- Steak, pork chop or chicken cutlet with boiled vegetables

- Meatballs in marinara sauce with sauteed vegetables

- Chicken and vegetable stirfry

- Steak, pork or chicken cutlet and salad

Steak, zucchini. garlic, coconut oil, butter, macadamia nuts, capsicum, silverbeet and avocado fried in a wok

You may be able to tell from that list, but I'm not much of a cook. I don't care much for hours of prep and slow cooking roasts. I've never baked anything in my life that wasn't a nacho dish that took at most, 10 minutes.

The important thing isn't how food is prepared, but the type of food we have available each meal. Our general grocery list follows the lines of:

Meat: steak, chicken wings, meatballs, chicken, bacon and pork are our primary varieties (lamb or veal are ok, but not our favourite). We go through a tonne of tuna and salmon

Vegetables: Broccoli, zucchini, carrots, spinach, lettuce, silverbeet, bok choy, cucumber, capsicum, tomatoes, avocado

Fruit: Bananas, and whatever is in season

Nuts: Almonds and macadamias

Herbs and spices: Whatever. My favourites are dill, garlic, generic barbecue, celery, basil and tumeric.

Other: cheese, pure cream, greek yoghurt, wine (I have a couple of glasses week), dark chocolate, olive oil, coconut oil

Irregular add-ons depending on tastes and sales: ice cream, nachos

Occasional garbage I have maybe once every couple weeks: McDonald's, Hawaiian Pizza, Fish n Chips

Good oil

The foundation is what matters most

As you may notice from above, I follow what is hardly, the strictest of diets.  The salient point is that Primal isn't meant to be a restrictive list but a solid foundation of principles. In general, I have  very few carbohydrates and load up on protein and fat via animal meat, plus all the colourful vegetables I can eat, and I make sure not to forget that I don't have to eat if I'm not hungry. For everything else, I roll with the punches. As far as concrete, deliberate rules go, I just try not to have carbohydrates if I don't have to. I don't step out of my comfort zone to avoid them - if it's someone's birthday, or someone just brought cake in for work I will happily share and appreciate, but given the choice, I'll opt for a salad rather than bread roll.

Taken from MarksDailyApple.com and used in Primal Living Part 2 - Ancestral Health

It may be only anecdotal, but I can personally vouch for the "Weight Loss Sweet Spot"  I discussed a while back. One thing I have done for years which may be considered pedantic is weigh myself every day - or most days. Over the years, I have learned that whenever I made a distinct effort to reduce my carb intake by holding off on pasta, rice and bread, the weight dropped even if this was all I did. I didn't need to workout at all, just swap some roasted veggies in for rice or choose not to add noodles to my stir fry, and I could be a kilo lighter after a week. The absolute foundation to all of this is to listen to your body and take stock of how it reacts to what you put in it. I started learning this long before I heard of paleo or primal, but the fact remains it was still crystal clear.

These days, I have a few years of reading, experimenting, and adapting under my belt. I look forward to registering for the Primal Blueprint Expert Certification Course, but I don't think I will ever be one for exact measurements. Nevertheless, I'm positive I stay within the Effortless Weight Maintenance zone of just over 100g of carbs per day. It make sense since I'm not putting on weight, and feeling healthier than I ever have despite working out the less than I ever have. In 2010 I ran around 70-100km a week so I could successfully complete the Gold Coast Marathon. Today, my dedicated exercise occupies maybe 3 hours a week. It may seem hard to believe, but I'm absolutely healthier, stronger, more relaxed and generally happier now than I was 5 years ago, and I have much more free time.

This just about covers what a typical week for me looks like in terms of food. Again, it's not too complicated. Next week, I will go switch gears and go over what my fitness regimen looks like. For now though, I'd love to know what you think? What is your week like? If you've been living primally yourself, how similar is your food week to mine? If this is all new to you, do these principles seem like reasonable adjustments you could make? Let me know in the comments below or on Google+.