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Transcript
- 09:09 What is a Paleo diet?
- 12:28 Paleo diet popularity
- 15:05 Paleo Diet Myth
- 17:44 What does the Paleo diet look like?
- 19:51 Starches and tubers
- 21:29 Grass fed meat vs. factory farm meats
- 24:15 Paleo diet for weight loss
- 27:16 How does Paleo diet work with our genetics?
- 30:34 Food adaptation
- 33:44 How does the Paleo diet improve health?
- 40:18 Is Paleo diet the best for optimum health?
- 43:49 Ancestral fitness
- 48:56 Ancestral principles into your workout routine
- 55:04 Paleo FX in Austin Texas
Wendy Myers: Good afternoon everyone. My name is Wendy Myers. I’m a Health and Nutrition Coach. I started my site myersdetox.com™ to educate people all about health and nutrition and how to treat their health conditions naturally without medication and how to detox from heavy metals and industrial chemicals so prevalent in today’s toxic world. And my goal of myersdetox.com is to help you avoid disease and live a long, healthy, happy life. But please keep in mind that this program is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or health condition because that would be illegal. Liveto110 radio is solely informational in nature, so please consult your health care practitioner before engaging in any treatment that I suggest on this show.
So if you have any questions or comments for our guest today about the Paleo diet, please call in at 917-889-2838. Again that phone number is 917-889-2838. So last week’s show was great. You really need to hear Nikki Moses from Mosesnutrition.com about Nutritional Balancing with hair mineral analysis. This protocol completely heals your entire body simply by giving you targeted supplements while detoxing your body and has profound and far reaching effects on your health, exactly what I’ve experienced doing this program for the last year. And it’s full compelling that I’m training in the protocol because it’s just amazing. All of my clients improved on this program and the results just can’t be ignored. So, give that show on Nutritional Balancing a listen.
Next week I have Lider Chan of Orthopedic Therapy and Associates on the show. He’s a doctor of physical therapy. I finally succumb to physical therapy after I had unrelenting back pain following the birth of my child. And I put off getting help because I thought that physical therapy was for older, debilitated people. Basically I was in denial that I actually fell into this category, but Dr. Lider is going to explain to us why it is so important to see a physical therapist if you are in pain or have an injury, waiting to treat an injury only makes it worst. So we’ll also touch on the health conditions that respond really well with physical therapy. So if you have any injury or are in pain of any kind, definitely give next week’s show a listen.
Wendy Myers: So our guest today is Evan Brand. Hey Evan, how are you doing?
Evan Brand: Hi, Wendy. Am I here now?
Wendy Myers: Yes you are here. Thank you for joining us.
Evan Brand: Awesome. No problem. Thanks for having me.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, you’re very welcome. So honored to have you on the show. I’ve been on your show a few times and figured it was time to put you on the hot seat.
Evan Brand: Absolutely. Thank you.
Wendy Myers: Skinny and brilliant today.
Evan Brand: Yeah, please do.
Wendy Myers: So before we start, I have a little disclaimer that I wanted to talk about in regards to diet. It’s in a few minutes and so it’s diet rants because I definitely think that the Paleo diet is the diet that will work for most people and this is why I’m doing this show. However, I just want to make it real clear that this diet is not going to work for everyone because everyone is quite different. For instance, it’s not going to work with people with kidney disease, you can’t handle protein your kidneys just can’t handle it. And people seem to be thriving on all different kinds of diets, but however given all my study and research, I personally believe that the Paleo diet is the diet that’s going to work for most people and should definitely be given a try.
The reason that I got this disclaimer out there was because I’ve gotten a few hate mails over doing this show advocating to eat against animals. So, I just wanted to say one word about that, I was a vegetarian for a couple of years with 6 months of that being vegan which is no meat or dairy. The books on the veggie diet sound really compelling, but researches were really poorly done that the results were manipulated and then they basically tell you that study after study that show that eating vegetarian, you know all these books basically show you that eating vegetarian will protect you from getting heart disease, stroke, and all the diseases of western affluence. And this is the reason I went on the diet, I wanted this health insurance. But I wanted to get very clear that while there are the studies that show that there is a reduction of these diseases on vegetarians compared to meat eaters, is not automatic insurance that you won’t die of stroke or heart attack or cancer, because vegetarians do die of stroke and cancer etc.
People who eat meat are usually eating deadly factory farm meat, they eat more flour and sugar which are the real killers in our diet, they also tend to smoke and drink more, and they have other bad health habits more than average vegetarians. So when you see studies showing that vegetarians are healthier, it’s not necessarily because they’re not eating meat, it’s because they have healthier habits overall. And it’s not meat that’s bad for you, an unhealthy lifestyle and bad factory farm meat is bad for you. So I want to make this absolutely clear, because the Paleo diet advocates eating grass fed meat which is biochemically and nutritionally hugely different than regular factory farm meet and it confers tremendous health benefits as a result.
So let’s get off with today’s show after my little rant.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Wendy Myers: Today we’re interviewing Evan Brand from Notjustpaleo.com and we’re going to shed some light on how important it is to follow the footsteps of our ancestors by following a Paleo diet and get caveman fitness tips with a few questions about ancestral health and fitness. I personally want to be fit like a caveman because they were in really good shape. So, if you’ve been wondering what the all the fuss is about over the Paleo diet, this is the show that you got to listen to.
So Evan Brand, you’ve got a great website, it’s called Notjustpaleo.com. I really, really like your blog. I think it’s really insightful. So basically how did you get into Paleo?
Evan Brand: Well first, I want to say thanks Wendy and secondly I got into Paleo by accident really. So I was 120 pounds, I was very skinny and I love playing sports but I could not gain weight to save my life. So, I had a friend who is an amateur body builder who competes in shows and stuff like that. He was kind of my idol and I just saw what he was doing and he was just eating tons of vegetables and meats. And at that time I was just eating conventional meats. So I just started following what he was doing, I was eating meats and vegetables and I was gaining weight and then just reading bodybuilding articles and different things like that. I came across this whole Paleo diet and I said, “Wow I’m basically eating everything that’s on this diet and I didn’t even know that it had a name.” So then I looked further into it and then I find the specifics about it and then I just adopted it since. So it’s been about a year for me, but I’ve got great results. I’ve already felt a lot better just by eliminating sugars as much as possible, of course I still get sugar from fruit, but that’s pretty much I got into it, just wanting to gain weight and build muscle and feel better. So I sleep better now, my energy levels are more stable throughout the day, I don’t have of those carb crashes that most people experience at 3:00 because your pop tarts and your bagel wore off from lunch and different things like that.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I have the same thing. I feel really good around 3:00 o’clock.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Wendy Myers: No more crashing.
Evan Brand: Exactly.
Wendy Myers: So what is a Paleo diet exactly?
Evan Brand: The Paleo diet is we have to attach the label or the term “Paleo” to just try to help explain what it is. So basically just because we’ve invented all these foods in the 21st century, now we have to come up with a trendy name for eating the food that used to exist on this planet naturally and still does exist, but it’s just not sold to you the same way.
So the Paleo diet is basically based off a diet that was what brought homosapiens to what they are today. And we were hunter-gatherers, we were living in small tribes and we were hunting and foraging while. generally speaking, the women would stay at home or stay in the cave, so the men would run out and we would have tons of wild game, deer, elk, bison, all these great sources of protein that were wild game and these were animals that were eating grass and bugs and all kind of other things.
So basically, we try to eat either wild game, so deer is great, there’s plenty of deer where I live. That would be good if you could have all wild game but that’s kind of unrealistic for a lot of the people especially where you live in Los Angeles it’d be kind of hard for you to get wild game unless you order online. So the Paleo diet is just meats, fruit, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. And healthy fats is something that is one of the main foundations of the Paleo diet. And that’s something that the mainstream has not caught on at all.
Wendy Myers: Yeah I know, fats are so important for health.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I mean it’s the scariest and it’s the most important part of your diet or what should be in your diet, because the mainstream low-fat thing is just not working. I mean look around at all these different marketed terms on potato chip bags and frozen meals. Everyone thinks that low-fat is the answer and it’s not the answer. So that’s where the Paleo diet strays from the standard American or standard European wherever you are, diet.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, we’ve been told that for decades. We need to eat low fat to protect our hearts and it’s a lie.
Evan Brand: Right. So healthy fats, we’re talking about grass fed butter, coconut oil being the main thing that you hear about in Paleo community. So just because the atomize flavor, it’s got a good source of fat in it and the medium chain triglycerides is actually what most of coconut oil is. So there’s another thing that’s more popular now, it’s called MCT oil which literally just stands for medium chain triglycerides and that is 100% versus the 60% MCT that’s in coconut oil. So that’s something that you can literally put in your coffee. This thing that is getting very popular it’s called “Bulletproof Coffee.” A guy named Dave Asprey came up with it.
Wendy Myers: Oh yeah.
Evan Brand: I’m sure it’s existed long before he came up with it, but he’s the one who kind of coined the term. And basically you’re just trying to get as high quality fats as you can in your coffee in the morning. And so you could put butter or you could the MCT oil in there. And when you start your day off with a healthy fat like that, you just feel better and it’s just the most optimal way to start your day.
Wendy Myers: Well you know there’s over 10,000 sites dedicated to the Paleo diet. Why do you think that Paleo diet is catching on so much?
Evan Brand: First, because it works. So a lot of people are coming here with autoimmune diseases and different types of health problems, but I was someone who is coming here with the only thing that I had really wrong with me was irritable bowel syndrome. And as soon as I eliminated bread, I got so much better. My symptoms improved, I didn’t have to run to the bathroom and always be afraid that I was going to be somewhere without one. So, just trying to pay attention and eliminate gluten and bread and other sources of it in general actually healed me. So that’s the reason that it’s gaining in popularity is because it works for people. So whether you’re someone who’s trying to build muscle, whether you’re someone who’s trying to lose weight or whether you have some other sort of debilitating health condition that you’re trying to recover from, the Paleo diet actually helps in all of those because it’s the only human diet that used to exist. So there was no alternative, you know 100 calorie snack packs and Doritos, they never used to exist. But now that we have an alternative, that’s where it gets scary.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. That’s why it makes so much sense to me. I don’t care what any study says, just common sense wise. If you eat a diet that our body is adapted top eat for millions of years, we’re going to be healthier because these are the foods our bodies were meant to function on; animal proteins and the vegetables and cutting out for the most part the grains and sugar, they just destroy our bodies.
Evan Brand: Right. And a lot of people like to nitpick and say that the diet in the food that we have today is not the same. Well that’s true; it’s not the same with selected breeding and things like that. You and I just talked about that too, the fact that fruits are so much sweeter and the bread to have a higher sugar content naturally than they used to, that’s just one small change. So if you want to nitpick on it, you cannot try it. But if you just try it for 30 days, just try to eliminate, the main things you’re just trying to eliminate are processed foods and sugars and grains. If you can do that, just those three to start, eliminate that for 30 days and just see what happens and you’ll get good results. You’ll feel like crap at first, but that’s because your body was addicted to your food, it’s addicted to your sugar and carb intake. So you will feel better about a week or two.
Wendy Myers: Okay. Now, frequently when I mention the Paleo diet to someone, they mention how a caveman only live an average until 30 years old. So why would you want to eat a Paleo diet? Can you debunk this myth?
Evan Brand: Yeah. That’s something that is probably one of the last straws that people really have to go towards when they hear about the Paleo diet. And so there’s a thing called evolutionary health promotion and it’s this preventative medicine article I can give you a link to it. It was something I was just reading earlier. And it says a consideration of common counter arguments and that’s one of the main things covered in this. And what we’ve learned is, life expectancy will not change that much when it’s free from all these different toxins, but the main thing was childbirth and dying basically very early childbirth deaths were the main cause of this average life expectancy. So now that we have a very, very successful birth rate as a society that has actually changed the life expectancy. So that’s some of the main differences. And a quote from this that I want to mention is, “A population with a life expectancy of 40 at birth will inevitably have much lower mortality from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and stroke than will a population with an average life expectancy of 75.”
So that might be hard to digest, but basically when you read this you just discover that our diet is not necessarily what caused this mortality rate. There were all different kinds of diseases and other stuff that were wiping us out. So to try to go back and say that food was the problem; it’s just kind of bad science really.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, that’s a really good point. Because when I first heard that, I thought that doesn’t make sense. Why would the caveman live till 30 and we’re living to 70? They just can’t be medications or diet or whatnot. It’s definitely because there’s probably a lot of children dying at child birth and infant mortality before the age of 5 and caveman dying in infections and accidents and all kind of stuff.
Evan Brand: Right, yeah. Just simple things like a cut that would get infected just because of lack of education or lack of experience with that stuff. Just a simple cut could turn into a big infection and turn into a big health problem. Rather than today, we just spray some alcohol on it and then we’re fine.
Wendy Myers: What does the Paleo diet look like? What kind of foods do you eat? What is your dinner or breakfast look like?
Evan Brand: My typical dinner is some source of protein always. I try to get protein in at every meal and I think that is very important. So after cooking some kind of chicken you want to go for chicken that was raised on a pasture. We have to come up with labels now because the food industry is so confusing. So when you try to go for chicken if you do, you want the pasture raised chicken because chickens are meant to be out in a yard grazing and not in a warehouse on top of hundreds of thousands of other chickens. So that’s the chicken I go for. I usually have some sort of mixed greens. So you can eat raw greens if you would like; kale, spinach, any type of greens are good for you but you should mix it up in cooked greens occasionally. So eating raw greens all the time, if you’re somebody who’s coming from a raw food diet, you probably should cook your greens.
There’s a lot more absorption that happens with all these vitamins and minerals in the food when you cook your greens. So say chicken, greens and then I would usually have some source of fat. So if I’m going to cook the chicken in the pan, I’ll just throw the coconut oil in there or I’ll throw the butter in there and cook with that and use that as my fat source. And then occasionally I’ll have a sweet potato after my workout, just because I obviously crave carbs after my work out. And then if I’m trying to replenish myself or just add some extra sugar coming from fruit and extra protein, I’ll make a smoothie and in my smoothie I’ll use either a coconut milk, a hemp milk, almond milk, I’ll throw some raspberries, blueberries, blackberries. I’ll throw that in with some leaves of kale and a scoop of whey protein and throw that in and it is delicious. That is my beverage for my dinner sometimes.
Wendy Myers: I’m hungry right now, that sounds real good.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Wendy Myers: That’s sounds a little bit atypical like as a lot of Paleo enthusiast aren’t into starches or not into the potatoes or tubers. And so what is your take on that?
Evan Brand: It depends on every single person. So this is a very specific case by case basis, you have to test the foods. So if you do stick to a very strict Paleo diet, you will not be eating any types of sweet potatoes, anything like that. They have a category, they call them night shades. And night shades are other things like tomatoes, and these are things that can influence you and they can influence the way you feel, especially if you’re somebody who’s coming from Celiac or you just have a lot more damage to your intestinal system. Tomatoes and starches can affect you that way.
So you just have to test them and if you feel better when you eat them, then that’s great. If you feel okay when you eat them, that’s great. But if you feel bad when you eat them, you should probably remove them from your diet. So it’s just a case by case basis. They happen to work for me. Another thing that people don’t do is dairy, that’s something that’s not into the Paleo diet just because when you trace back the roots of getting raw milk from cows, you know cows technically aren’t Paleo because they are a modern animal created from an ancient animal. But the inclusion of dairy is something that I do also. So sometimes I’ll drink some, I haven’t found a raw milk distributor here yet. But occasionally I will have some local cheese or some sort of dairy like that.
Wendy Myers: So I know the Paleo diet typically advocates wild or grass fed meat. Can you tell some differences between grass fed meat and conventional factory farm meats?
Evan Brand: Yeah. They’re literally completely different. So you mentioned before that they’re actually biochemically different. So basically the corn fed beef that you’re eating at your normal grocery store, it’s been so altered, the corn itself is probably genetically modified to start and they’re coming from these confined animal feeding operations. So you hear them called CAFOs, that’s what you’ll see, that’s where most of your meet is coming from. And not only does it have very dangerous levels of hormones in it, the fact that it’s eaten a genetically modified corn its entire life, actually goes into your body. So I mean you are what you eat, and if you’re eating these unhealthy sick cows, you’re going to end up the same way. So that’s why you should avoid the store bought meat, if you can or the mainstream corn fed beef.
And now when you get into the grass fed beef, there’s actually a different fat content. So what we see in grass fed cows is that you have a higher level of Omega 3s and these fats are very important for brain function. So if you’re not getting grass fed beef, you’re probably going to have brain fog and all different kinds of other symptoms from eating a conventional diet. And when you have these good fats in your system and you have a good ratio, that’s something that’s different too. When you hear about the two most common fats: the Omega 3s and your Omega 6s, the ratios in these are different too. So too much Omega 6 is what makes us sick and the ratio is a lot more balanced in the grass fed cow. So it’s the hormones, it’s what they’re fed; it’s the way that they’re raised, that’s important too. So a grass fed cow is a very good start. Obviously if we start making confined feeding operations for grass fed cows, we’ll start to get ourselves in trouble there too.
Wendy Myers: Hey everybody out there, you listeners, if you have a comment or question for our guest today, anything about the Paleo diet, please call in at 917-889-2838. Again that’s 917-889-2838. We are dying to hear from you and answer your questions at the end of the interview. So, let us know.
Evan Brand: Absolutely. I said that’s great.
Wendy Myers: So Evan, how is the Paleo diet good for weight loss and fat burning?
Evan Brand: Well basically, we look back at, you know there’s a lot of skepticism about this too. You know there’s a common theme here, but there’s a lot of skepticism about the amount of carbs that ancestral eating would have been like. So basically, you’re reducing your carbs, you’re reducing your carbs not purposely, it’s just the side effects. So I don’t like people to focus on your carb intake or anything like that. But basically when you eliminate bread and you eliminate grains, those are two very big sources of carbs in the mainstream diet. And when you eliminate those two, it just so happens you’re reducing your carbs, and when you reduce your carbs, you can lose weight. Because carbs are basically sugar to the body. So just by eliminating some of these things, you’re going to be losing weight and also when you’re eating all these different types of greens and vegetables in your diet, you’re going to be burning fat, that’s just the properties of them. And when you combine this with exercise, which is my other favorite topic, basically it’s just a compounding effect. So the reason that the Paleo diet just creates a general overall healthy body is because of this reduction in carbs. That’s one of the main things and the inclusion of fats. So those are probably two of the biggest reasons.
Wendy Myers: Yeah because a lot of people think that if you eat fat, you gain fat, you accumulate fat. But what is your take on that?
Evan Brand: It’s absolutely false and you should absolutely be getting fat, like I said unless you’re a sensitive person, you should be getting fat in the mornings. So eggs actually have more fat than they have protein. And you hear about people taking out the yolks, well the yolks have so many important things inside of them. But when you take out the yolks and you’re just eating the egg white, you’re kind of limiting yourself. So you have to get those fats in your diet. You will not get fat, there’s tons of research being done about the links between saturated fat and overall health and brain function and different things like that. If you just do some searches around, Chris Kresser, he is one of the biggest researchers in all different types of studies like this. So if you just look up him and you look up saturated fat, you will learn all the different results.
And another thing I want to mention Wendy is the fact that people like to study and they like to do so much research before they go and test things on themselves. So these small diet changes like this, this is not something that you should paralyze yourself and you’re sitting there listening to this and you’re paralyzing yourself and you’re over analyzing everything. If you just go out and try to make some of these simple changes, you’ll see the results for yourself. So I think we get a lot of decision paralysis just because people are so confused about what to eat.
Wendy Myers: How does the Paleo diet works to your genetics to keep a person healthy?
Evan Brand: Well, we’re genetically bred and genetically engineered to eat these foods. We’re not designed to eat Doritos. So what the companies have done is they’ve tricked our sensory input. So basically, if you make things crunchy, spicy or just really easy to grab, we get tricked. And this plays into genetics because the fast food industry actually affects your genetics, it affects your children’s genetics and there’s a whole field called epigenetics which is trying to link all these different types of diet and environmental concerns with overall health. So the Paleo diet is the closest thing we can do to try to eat like the species that existed for 2 million years before we got here.
So you know we’re shoved into this world and we have so many great advances in technology and different things like that, but our bodies are still very ancient in the sense that our genetics are expecting us to get exercise, our genetics are expecting us to get sunshine, and they’re expecting us to get high quality food that was from the closest source to a natural animal that we can possibly get. So it’s the outtmost importance.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. It definitely makes sense that look our ancestors because basically you know, I just listened to a really interesting podcast from Mike Adams, he has the Health Ranger Show and he was talking about how we definitely have to eat foods that we are adapted to. We’re adapted to eating grass fed meats, we’re adapted to eating the vegetables and fruits and nuts and seeds and not a whole lot else. But we also can adapt to eating new foods and that’s why I think it’s interesting that you definitely want to follow like a Paleo diet, eating only those foods. But because we can adapt to eating new foods, like some people can eat dairie, some people can eat grains, I think everyone should cut out gluten and sugar without exception because those are both proven to be really, really bad for your health.
But I like the take on the adaptations of the Paleo diet because our bodies can adapt to eating foods to which we previously haven’t been adapted to. And I think that sometimes the Paleo community goes a little you know maybe off the mark a little bit. Because if we’re told we shouldn’t ever eat foods that we’re not adapted to, then how do we learn to eat all these other foods? I mean at some point humans may encounter foods that they’ve never eaten before and we adapt to eating them like the lactase enzyme, that was a very, very simple adaptation that happened really, really quickly. When we started able to domesticate animals and start milking them, again that’s why dairy doesn’t work for most people and grains don’t work for most people because they just started being cultivated like 10,000 or 15,000 years ago. So what is your take on that?
Evan Brand: Yeah. No, I completely agree and like I said you have to test these things for yourself and we are always adapting. So these adaptations, you know the one with milk, it did happen very fast but other adaptations will not happen very fast. So like I said you just have to test things and let’s face it, we’re in an environment that is so far away from what our ancestors lived that I understand how it can be confusing. I understand you’re going to be in situations where a cupcake and a cookie are going to come out on the counter and they’re going to look delicious and people are going to tempt you with stuff like that. But once you get really tuned in to your body, you’ll start to learn how these things affect you and you will learn what adaptation you can and cannot do for your personal self. So like I said, I’ll eat some local cheese and it’s fine but some people it might send them straight to the bathroom or have gas or any kind of condition like that. So you just have to pay attention and just test every single food. It’s very specific; blueberries could set some people off. So it’s crazy how it works.
Wendy Myers: Yeah I know. I keep trying to test the gluten and it just does not work for me.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Wendy Myers: I keep testing that one over and over. I should have learned my lesson.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. It’s hard to avoid, it definitely takes practice and it definitely takes a long time to just make all those different changes. I mean the first thing for people is just clearing out your pantry. That’s some of the hardest things to do. When you look back at what was considered staple food for you or some kind of nostalgic food, just clearing out the pantry is emotional in itself. The emotional aspect is huge in any diet change.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. I know, it’s hard to change the diet especially if you have your beloved foods, you like bagels or chocolate chip cookies, those are my problem. But you can change, you can adapt your protein and vegetables and I love my diet now. I savor every bite and I would have never thought 5 years ago that I wouldn’t be eating tortillas and bread and sandwiches and things like that but I’m fine.
Evan Brand: Yeah. It’s a good feeling and it’s overwhelming for people. So that’s something that we don’t talk about too much it’s just the emotional part of it. And I think it’s just important to take baby steps because you could get overwhelmed and if you try to think of things as diet and you think of the restrictive nature of the word diet, you can really stress yourself out and then it will cause worse problems then the good food will actually benefit you.
Wendy Myers: I know the Paleo diet has improved my health. When I was vegetarian, I developed adrenal fatigue and thyroid issues and numerous vitamin deficiencies like iron and B12 and vitamin D. And I’ve done the Paleo diet for a year and those have pretty much all corrected, even though the adrenals and thyroid are taking a little bit longer to correct because they just take time. But the diet’s really corrected all of my nutritional deficiencies and I just wonder exactly how has the Paleo diet improved your health?
Evan Brand: Well the first thing for me was my sleep. So, I used to work third shift and that’s a very non-Paleo thing I’ll have to say. That’s something that wouldn’t have existed up until about 100 or 200 years ago with the advent of better lanterns and light technology. So anyway, I worked third shift and my sleep was horrible. So in combination of me changing back to day shift and changing my diet at the same time, it could have been a correlation and there could have been a relation in both of these things improving my life, but I just slept better. So if you’re experiencing some kind of intestinal discomfort from eating gluten and eating bread and different things like that all the time, you’re pooping patterns are so unregulated, that was a problem for me. That’s what kept me up, some nights I didn’t know if I could lay down without my stomach being upset. So that was one of the big things for me.
And secondly, I just feel better and my skin has improved too. So my acne was partly related to the hormones, actually most certainly related to the hormones in the chicken from Tyson or all these mainstream companies. And so my acne has cleared up, my skin is a lot clear, my skin feels better, I feel better, I think better, I have better focus, I have better results in the gym especially when I’m consuming carbs at the right time, especially when I’m consuming these fats in higher quantities than I used to. My performance is better too so with the whole mind, body revelation really, but the most notable effects are just my mental stamina; I don’t get tired as easily, I can finish a full day of work, I could go to school, focus for 4 hours there, come home focus on the computer, write, talk to you. You know I could do so much more without being drained.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I agree. I had the same thing when I was vegetarian. After 2 years I had reached a point where I just could not think. I would be reading something and taking notes for my blog, I have to take note of a page number and then go to a page and write it down and I couldn’t remember it. And I tested myself a hundred times; out of a hundred times I could not remember looking at the page number and then going to write it down. And that’s when I decided to go to my doctor and figure out what the hell was wrong with me? Like I’m 40, it’s not like I’m an old person where my memory is just completely gone. And now after being on the Paleo diet and getting all those Omega 3s that I was missing from my vegetarian diet, I don’t ever have that problem. It doesn’t ever happen anymore and it’s really goes to show you that one of the reasons why we went from monkeys to men and our brains increased in size was because these monkeys came out of the tree and sort of scavenging on the ground and they started sucking bone marrow and eating brains, they started scavenging carcasses. And the DHA which is the fat that you’re finding in these Omega 3 rich grass fed meats was what was fueling our brain and cause it to grow and cause us to evolve. So if we don’t have the healthy Omega 3 fats, our brain just don’t work.
Evan Brand: Yeah, absolutely. And if you’re coming from the vegetarian or the vegan standpoint, if you’re concerned with all the ethical issues and stuff like that, you can call the farms that are near you and ask them about how the cow’s life was or how the pig’s life was and they will tell you and if they won’t tell you, then you should probably find a better source for meat. So that’s something I’m working on right now.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, that’s a really good point because a lot of people the vegetarians, they’re very skeptical about getting meat but the truth is they don’t want to kill animals or hurt animals. But the truth is, Leigh Arkithe made a really, really good point about this, that she says that, “no matter what you put on your plate, no matter what you eat, something had to die to get that food on your plate.” Because this big monoculture or agriculture that’s going on of all the wheat that’s planted in the Midwest, all the buffalo had to go extinct to plant these huge crops, and rainforest in Brazil is being cut down to plant soybeans – the huge market for soybeans there. So all the life, not even just the animals, but the bacteria and the birds and everything that ecosystem have to be demolished to grow these plants. So it’s kind of an error in judgement to think that if you’re only eating plants, you’re not harming the animals.
Evan Brand: Yeah and you’re affecting the environment too. That’s something that we haven’t quite figured out yet because the population is just skyrocketing and we’re trying to keep up with food production. I guess the easiest thing for people to do to combat this is just to grow some herbs or a couple things in your backyard or in your windowsill just to try a little bit more like you’re self sufficient.
Wendy Myers: Yeah and it’s sad that in the Paleo diet probably it’s not sustainable for everybody. I mean there’s only so much grass land where all these grass fed cows can graze, but unfortunately it’s just one of those things where the majority of the planet doesn’t eat meat, simply because they can’t afford it.
Evan Brand: Right.
Wendy Myers: So some people because of the Paleo diet say, “Oh it’s not sustainable.” And it’s not but it’s almost like a survival of the fittest. You know the people with more money, they can afford to buy these meat, they’re the ones that are going to thrive and have better health.
Evan Brand: Right. Yeah it’s unfortunate, the amount of people, the billions of people worldwide that have no access to high quality foods like this. But, no I try to just do one method of being grateful everyday just to show my respect and just to be very grateful for everything that we have. We have so much opportunity to be able to get high quality food like this. So even that in itself was a miracle.
Wendy Myers: So, do you think the Paleo diet is the best for optimum health?
Evan Brand: From what I’ve seen in all the results of people that Rob Wolf and Chris Kresser, Dr. Loren Cordain all of these different names that you hear in the Paleo community, they’ve seen so much change in people’s health and I’ve seen changes in people that I talk to and their health and my health. I haven’t seen a better alternative at this point.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. I mean I just heard nothing but good things as well. In all the research that I’ve done, it’s just, in my opinion it does seem like definitely the best diet for the optimum health. Absolutely.
Evan Brand: Right.
Wendy Myers: Of course we have some exceptions, some people they can’t eat, they have kidney issues, they probably can’t eat much protein.
Evan Brand: Right. That’s something that I learn myself too is that when you hear the caveman diet or anything like that, people think you’re just gorging on pounds and pounds of meat a day. But like I said, meat is something that’s specific for each person too. So like you already mentioned and when I talked with Dr. Pierre Osbourne, he told me the same thing it’s that sometimes meat is a huge, huge, huge debilitating food for people and that they have to go to a vegetarian diet for a while just to heal first.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. That’s what I’m saying, the Paleo diet is wonderful but it doesn’t work for every single person. Some people thrive being vegan, it’s probably a small number of people but that’s different diets, different strokes for different folks.
Evan Brand: Right.
Wendy Myers: So, can you tell me a story of someone you met that has seriously improved their health in the Paleo diet?
Evan Brand: Yeah, my buddy Matt. He is an amateur body builder and he’s done a couple of competitions now. He’s in top 5 in both competitions which was awesome and he credited it to the Paleo diet. And he wasn’t familiar of the term the Paleo diet either, he just knew that he wanted to be healthy and he needed to build muscle and lose fat at the same time. So how do you that? You eliminate all the processed foods. So he was a big sufferer of acne, all kinds of back acne and facial acne and when he switched to higher quality food, he noticed the reduction in acne, he also worked third shift, he still does work third shift now. But he said he does sleep better, he can build muscle almost effortlessly, that depends on the person too. But it’s basically just the combination of acne disappearing almost, I’d say at least 50% better acne and a lot more muscle and a lot less fat. So basically he’s just been able to fine tune his body. He was already pretty healthy before, but when he just fined tune some of these things, he just notices an overall well being and basically has a 6 pack without even flexing, just based of his low body fat percentage which has happened from reducing the carb intake and eliminating bread and different things like that.
Wendy Myers: So, how does fitness play into this whole Paleo lifestyle? What are some of the secrets of ancestral fitness? So to speak.
Evan Brand: Well my main thing is trying to go barefoot. So if you’re living in metropolitan area, you’re in the middle of Los Angeles, maybe this is going to be a little bit harder for you. But if you can, you can get the Vibrams or the Filas. There’s different brands of barefoot shoes that are coming out now and I think it’s a great thing. And the concept behind that is why would we have toes, if we’re going to shove them in to a mainstream shoe? If we were built to put our foot into a mainstream shoe, we would have just have developed slippers instead of having these toes that give us such a good ability to grasp things, we can sense the environment better, you could feel rocks when you’re running trails. So we’re built to connect to the ground and there’s so many nerves in your feet. There’s a reason that foot massages are so huge around the world and there’s a reason that foot massages are so relaxing.
The amount of nerves that are in them just speak to the fact that we’re supposed to be on these feet bare ground as much as possible. So that’s one of the main things of fitness as I try to do some sort of exercise in grass, I try to avoid walking on sidewalks as much as possible, it could sound silly to some people, but I’ve had joint problems, I have a torn meniscus, slightly torn meniscus in my right knee and when I switched to barefoot shoes and when I started walking on the grass next to the sidewalks, I noticed a huge improvement in the way my joints feel and my low back pain especially. So those are some of the two things that improved for me.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I’ve heard that there’s some studies out there that show that you definitely have a better alignment when you just walk on your feet and that using shoes actually screws up your natural alignment.
Evan Brand: Yeah absolutely. I mean look at your mainstream tennis shoe right now, most of the time you’re getting a higher level in the back. I won’t even go into high heels; we can let you find your own conclusion on those. But when you’re foot is so artificially raised in the back, it literally does change the whole alignment of your spine. So, I’ve talked to a couple of chiropractors about this and they see, there’s actually chiropractors that are waking up to this and they’re seeing the connection between mainstream shoes and back pain and other types of alignment and spine problems.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. When I first saw the barefoot shoes coming out and people were actually going to start running in them, that’s kind of in the 80’s days sort of to come out. And I thought people were insane because I thought that you had to wear these shoes to cushion your joints and cushion the straining, running or exercising whatever it can be on your joints. But actually the opposite is true, you need that maybe a little bit of stress to have that proper alignment to that stress to tone your body and have everything work correctly and even to have your foot develop correctly. With my baby I’ve been told by an orthopedic therapist that she needs to walk without shoes so that her feet can form properly.
Evan Brand: That’s great.
Wendy Myers: So what ancestral principles of fitness help you?
Evan Brand: Well the main thing is just trying to get exercise outside. So basically right now, what we do is we pay however many dollars per month to get in our car and drive into an air-conditioned facility that has no plants, it’s full of fluorescent lighting and tons of machines and we’re expected to go in there and develop some sort of sustainable exercise routine and leave and feel good about ourselves. And that is completely possible, I have a gym membership myself and I love it. But getting exercise outside is just a completely different world. I went for a 5 mile bike ride yesterday and I just pay attention to things more. It makes you more aware and it improves your everyday life because you start to take things in smaller strides. So basically just walking, you go down to the street; you might notice something that you’ve never noticed before. Maybe it’s a pretty tree or a pretty flower that you’ve never seen on this certain street corner before. You never would have noticed that if you were driving your car. So that’s like one of the most beneficial things, it’s kind of a form of meditation. I mean we live in a stressful place and if you go from your car to your office back out to your car to your gym; you’re not really getting any time out in nature. So it’s a double whammy to be inside and exercise, but it’s a double win-win situation if you’re outside and exercising. Hope that answer the question.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, absolutely. So how can someone go about incorporating ancestral principles into their workout routine?
Evan Brand: The main thing is just getting outside as much as possible. So like I mentioned, I went on a bike ride. That’s one easy way. You know technically, for me bike riding is a very low impact exercise. So it might not be considered ancestral. It’s just a very low impact thing that helps me, it helps my muscle soreness. So if I’m very sore, I’ll just go for a bike ride, it literally loosens up my whole body. So that’s one aspect.
The main thing is just getting outside and use nature as your playground and use nature as your gym. So there are couple of places around me where there’s natural stepping stones, probably about 100 yards of stepping stones that go up this massive grass hill and there’s also a big hill near me called Doug Hill and that’s where everyone when they do their sprints, they’ll sprint up this grass hill to the top and it’s a very popular local fitness thing around me. So that’s just one thing that you can do.
And the other thing is to use your whole body. So if we have any listeners that are the chronic cardio junkies, they only run, they only jump on treadmills and ellipticals and they’re just used to this what they call steady state cardio, that’s something that wouldn’t have really existed in ancestral times. We only would have had sprinted, we’re assuming that we would only have sprinted to hunt our food or running from a tiger or we’re on this fight or flight mode, that’s the whole reason our adrenaline is still in existence today. But when you’re doing this steady state cardio, what a lot of people love is hour and a half long steady state motion, you’re not really benefiting yourself. So if you can just switch from that and try to go to a more intense but shorter duration, you will burn way more fat and you’ll feel better too you won’t wore yourself out. I think that people can lead themselves down the route of adrenal fatigue just based of their exercise routine.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. I’ve heard that the high intensity interval training is the one like what you just mentioned is most closely related to how the caveman worked out. Because they would run after their food, or they’ll be running away from a predator, whatnot. Can you explain kind of the theory behind high intensity interval training?
Evan Brand: Yeah. The basis of it is that you’re doing very intense exercise for a short amount of time. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be sprinting. And basically what you can do, for me my sprint day is 10 30-second sprints or if I’m on a track that has turns, I will sprint the straights and I’ll walk the curves. So that’s something that’s very easy. And the concept behind it is just to keep this alternating heart rate and just to keep your system from exhausting itself. When you do that 6 or 7 mile an hour run on the treadmill, not only are you just clunking on your joints the entire time and just kind of wearing yourself down slowly. This high intensity stuff, it really invigorates you. I feel much better doing this interval training. And you can do that with circuits too, that’s another thing. You could try and basically you want to go from one type of workout to another. So what I like to go is go from a pushing exercise to a pulling exercise. So what I’ll do is I’ll do 3 sets of this circuit, I’ll do 10 pull ups followed by 10 push ups or 10 push ups followed by 10 pull ups. And you do 10 of each consecutively, no break in between and then you rest for 30 seconds or a minute. You just have to go of what your body feels and then you do it again, that’s circuit training. That kind of relates to high intensity interval training. Those are probably the two best exercise methods for fat loss and just overall strength games.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. Because it was myself, I discovered high intensity interval training, it’s called HIIT. I was just reading something and you know I used to do the 1 hour treadmill routine or 1 hour walk and just kind of do it slow and steady pace. So when I switched and just doing 20 minutes of the high intensity intervals where I’m just going as hard as I can for 30 seconds and then kind of just relaxing for 90 seconds and then doing that over and over and over and that cycle, I got so m1any more benefits. And apparently lyou burn fat for longer after that workout than you do an entire hour of just walking.
Evan Brand: Yeah absolutely. They say that you can do a 4 minute sprint and you get the same benefits as a half hour or 2 hour walking. It’s pretty amazing.
Wendy Myers: Yeah because that’s what the caveman were doing. That’s what like our bodies were designed to do. And some of these runners out there, I mean we were not designed to run. It’s like they just destroy their tissue, they destroy their joints doing that because we’re just weren’t built to do that.
Evan Brand: Yeah. If somebody wants to read about some of the things behind marathons and just some of the detrimental effects to your body from a lifetime of marathons, you should look up Rich Roll. He also has a podcast and he wrote a book and he talks about his experience as an ultramarathon athlete and how basically he’s changed his whole mentality on this chronic very long duration, very intense exercise like doing marathons and triathlons, different things like that. So that’s a good resource.
Wendy Myers: These ultramarathons are crazy; people are running a hundred miles as opposed to the 26 mile regular marathon.
Evan Brand: Wow.
Wendy Myers: It’s just like insane to me.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Wendy Myers: I have never run 10 milesin my life. I can’t imagine it.
Evan Brand: Yeah really.
Wendy Myers: So I hear that you went to the Paleo FX in Austin, what was going on down there?
Evan Brand: It was incredible and I hope to see you there next year.
Wendy Myers: I’m going to be there next time. I promise.
Evan Brand: Okay, sweet. Paleo FX is a convention down in Austin Texas. It happens every year; this was the second year for it. And there was tons of panels. So basically you go into a room and there’s 5 amazing people on the stage and basically we just cover all kind of topics. So it’s a very interactive experience. It’s not this kind of idolizing effect that you get from most of the doctors and the medical industry where people are put on these ivory towers. I mean you could just go up and you could speak to anyone and everyone, it was a very down to earth thing. And basically we just covered tons of topics; adrenal fatigue was by far the most popular room that I went too. There was cooking demonstrations, there is supposed to be a box of beef coming to my door any day that I ordered there. There’s all kind of samples of high quality beef. They give you a little fun bag of beef jerky and stuff like that. But basically just being surrounded by some of the most passionate and healthy people that I’ve ever seen. That’s how you sum it up. It’s an incredible experience. Anybody should go, be a part of some kind of a group, if you can. This whole thing is much easier when you have a partner or a group of people that support you at this.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. I heard like all the biggest names of Paleo were there; like Mark Sisson of Mark’s Daily Apple, Sean Croxton and Chris Kresser and all the balancedbites.com girls were there, one of them was there.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Mark didn’t show up this year for some reason.
Wendy Myers: Oh, he didn’t?
Wendy Myers: Yeah. I think at the last one. I think he was busy with his thing. He has a thing called PrimalCon now, it’s kind of another conference, maybe he was setting up for that. I’m not sure, but yeah all the people there are very down to earth. It’s incredible experience and you learn too. I mean I have a notebook sitting right here of notes and people’s phone numbers and names and people I’ve connected with. I mean it was great.
Wendy Myers: Yeah and also if people want to learn where to get, like where they can buy these grass fed meats, you can definitely check out Eatwild.com.
Thank you so much for being on the show today, Evan. That’s all the questions that I have. And can you tell the listeners where you’re located and where they can find you?
Evan Brand: Yeah sure. You can find me back at notjustpaleo.com. I have a podcast too. Wendy and I have done a couple of episodes. I have other people; it’s called Not Just Paleo because that is not the only component to health. So I go into other things; sleep habits, reducing anxiety, breathing techniques and stuff like that. So if you want to just tie diet to fitness to sleep and just pile these things together that’s what I cover at my site and on my podcast. You could check me out there. I’m on Twitter, Facebook too. You could just search for Not Just Paleo and you’ll find me.
Wendy Myers: Yeah and I love your podcast. I mean I’ve been a guest on your show, but I think you just do a really great job of interviewing people and I love some of the guests you’ve had on your show and I’ve really learned a lot from listening to your podcast. So, thank you for contributing to society in that way.
Evan Brand: Well thank you Wendy and hopefully I’ve helped some of your listeners too.
Wendy Myers: Thank you so much.
Evan Brand: All right. Thank you. Bye.
Wendy Myers: Okay. Bye-bye.
Well everyone that was Evan Brand of notjustpaleo.com. He is fantastic. I’ll see you guys next week when I interview when I interview Lider Chan in The Benefits of Doing Physical Therapy. Bye-bye.
