My Paleo Testimonial

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13TH, 2011

Open Class 5:30pm

Baseball/Softball Class 6:30pm

MY TESTIMONIAL

Testimonials are one of the most powerful statements so, in light of that, I offer you mine.

Growing up my parents lived paycheck to paycheck, barely scrapping by each couple of weeks and doing the best they knew how. This meant that they did their best to try and buy what was healthiest for a growing baby, infant, toddler, and child but weren't always able to provide what they wanted. At no point did I, nor they, ever go hungry but the quality of food was, as I'll explain, consistently poor.

You see, even when my parents tried to buy healthy foods for a growing youngster they were extremely ill-educated as to what healthy actually was and, to what extent I can blame them for that I don't know. Though I know that they didn't upturn every rock figuring out what would best serve my developmental needs, I don't believe that the information that was required for those developmental needs was very readily available to them at the time if it was even available at all.

Now, I don't blame my parents for what they did or didn't feed me in the slightest. Nor do I blame them for letting me eat what I ate when I was finally old enough to make my own decisions (beginning when figured out how to open cupboards, bags, containers, cans, etc., and learned how to climb on the counters to reach bowls and other goodies). The recognition that food could greatly influence your health like it does, for better or for worse, was not very widely considered and there were definitely no efforts to teach this concept to the general public...or anyone really for that matter. All food was simply that, food, and you ate what you wanted.

In the beggining I remember LOTS of SPAM, hotdogs, maccaroni and cheese, fish sticks, sugary cereals, sodas, ice cream, candy, cookies, cakes, chips, and juices (and their liknesses such as Capri Suns and box juices). As I began making my own decisions on what to eat this turned into plenty of bagel bites/microwave pizzas, pot pies, cereals, breads, pastas, crackers, kool-aid, fast food, and anything listed above really.

This was what I ate during those important developmental years of my life and boy how do I believe I am paying for it now. One of the most common and frustrating things I regularly hear is, "Oh it's alright or it doesn't matter if little Johnny eats whatever he wants. He's still young and so full of energy that he'll burn it right off". First of all, the idea of eating something is ok doesn't work like that at any age. Hence the reason for the astronomical incline in childhood obesity and type 3/early onset diabetes. There's a whole lot more to eating than just looking good as chemical/hormonal and other physiological responses in your body must be considered as well. Just because someone looks good DOES NOT mean that they are healthy. Secondly, I will make the arguement that it is actually more important for children to eat healthier than adults. As a child develops their body is making uncountable connections mentally, structurally, neurologically, etc. that WILL BE stunted by improper nutrition.

How do we pay for this as we age and our kids age? We are not as strong, we get injured much easier, our mental capacity is underdeveloped, we become diseased and deal with greater instances of depression (which, in many cases can be cured strictly through nutrition intervention) as well as a whole gammet of other attrocities. I feel one of my greatest shortcomings from my early developmental nutrition is that I'm always injured and the integrity of my connective tissues is severely lacking.

During high school, I ate at Burger King, Dominoes, Carl's Jr., and/or Taco Bell EVERY DAY! This was in addition to a 6-pack of Mountain Dew and at least 1 bag of Nacho Cheese Dorittos each day as well. Bless my Mom's heart, she really did try as breakfasts consisted of things like eggs, oatmeal with brown sugar or jam, toast with cinnamom sugar, cereal, juice, etc., and dinner was usually something that included meat and pasta with mounds upon mounds of cheese. Sometimes though I would just eat a box of Lucky Charms or have a whole bag of chips for dinner!

During this period of my life I can remember being constantly tired, feeling hazy nonstop, not even wanting to go to my games because I was so drained, couldn't really wake up from taking a nap and just wanted to sleep. When the games did start everything seemed so blurry it was like I was looking through a screen door. (No, I did not partake in any of the shenannigans that many high school teenagers did that might cause this type of behavior). In our society we disregard this by saying things like, "Eh, he's a teenager. He's got a lot of hormonal imbalances going on and heck, he's a growing boy!" Yes, hormones are different for teenagers and they might very well be growing, however, at NO POINT in our life are we supposed to feel this way. And I vividly remember the day that I stopped feeling this way. It was the day I started eating healthy.

That was my upbringing. Where the story gets good for those of us who are already beyond that developmental stage is here...

Upon graduating high school I progressed to college sports and took up working out (in the form of bodybuilding style workouts). Quickly I began to understand that food actually made an impact on how my body was going to respond to workouts and that there were certain things I should and shouldn't eat. This was a HUGE turning point for me as I had absolutely zero inclination previously that food played any part in a person's health. Much like I believe haunts a vast majority of people still though it is obvious a greater awareness of this concept is becoming increasingly better known and people are becoming much better educated (just like we did with cigarettes!...for more on this continue reading).

Eventually my athletic career ended and I decided to seriously focus on bodybuilding. I was going to be the biggest, baddest natural bodybuilder of all time. The Arnold of natural bodybuilding if you will. I focused my nutritional efforts toward what all the "experts" recommended. This included cereals, whole grains, oatmeal, and whole wheat pastas and breads with every meal. It also meant that I consume lots and lots of beans, rice, dairy (milk, cottage cheese, yogurt, cheese), and protein (types of protein did not seem to matter as long as it was at a minimum of at least 1g of protein per lb of bodywieght). In addition I was to be getting very little fat and supplement with everything under the sun, including "protein bars". These foods were globbed into that 70% carbohydrate, 20% protein, 10% fat formula that I referred to in yesterday's post.

Over time I increasingly became fatter and sicker with this way of eating. At no point did I ever feel good, my stomach was constantly in knots, I had a hard time thinking clearly and staying alert, my acne was awful (another thing that we blame on age, but teenagers should have clear skin as should adults if nutritional intake is right), though I never got checked for it I believe I had low levels of depression at times, as well as a whole host of other goodies. As a result I was not the same person that you know today. It seriously affected my relationships, job performance, academic performance, etc.

It didn't matter how much or how little I ate my body simply did not like what I was giving it and responded accordingly. But I pressed on like a good soldier as so many do because it was the best avenue to good health and looking good...right?

As you guessed what I was going to say next...WRONG! Eventually I was turned on to the Paleo Diet and was talked into trying it for a month. 30 days didn't sound that bad. I could do anything for 30 days, especially given the way that I had experimented with my body with so many different ways of eating up to this point. Immediately I saw a positive shift in every way imaginable. All of those symptoms listed above went away. I was feeling better than I ever had before and, after only two weeks, I began to start seeing much more definition in my body! After 30 days I had whole wheat pasta for dinner and felt sick almost instantaneously. Within the hour I was doubled up in bed in the fetal position moaning like a dying cow. Was not a pretty sight. But I figure it was just a little food poisoning and went back to my old way of eating. Quickly my symptoms returned. After eating my previous diet for approximately 30 days I decided to give Paleo another shot. This time for 60 days. Same result but the addiction wasn't as hard to kick this time. Being the bright guy that I am, I didn't learn from my first experience and figured that this was all just a fluke and something other than my diet must have changed (now I'm sounding like a doctor or nutritionist). But, literally nothing had changed other than my diet. So at the end of 60 days I had a bowl of oatmeal and two pieces of plain whole wheat toast for breakfast.

I was huddled over the toilet puking within 15 minutes! This was 2008. Since then I've been consistently eating Paleo and reaping the benefits. Every once in a while I slip up and have something I'm not supposed to but when I do I know what to expect and I'll tell you it's never worth it.

There were two weeks there that were really hard to get through for me though. I went through some serious withdrawls and had some intense cravings. The reason being that bread, pastas, wheat, flour, gluten, etc. have some extremely addictive properties on par with crack cocain and other various addictive drugs! It was like two weeks of moderate detoxifyication.

Listen to your body. Everyone responds differently to certain foods but your body will tell you what's ok and not ok in it's own way. If you have acne, your stomach is bloated, you have gas, your brain feels foggy, you're constantly tired, etc., etc., your body is letting you know that you've insulted it somehow and eventually this accumulation of insults will lead to a revolt - meaning your body will make you seriously sick. Sick to the point of losing your independence and relying on others to take care of you.

I liken food today to the progression of cigarettes. For many years smoking cigarettes was cool and there was no awareness as to the dangers of the habit. Smoking was recreational, cool, great for social settings and made people feel good, oftentimes being used as a stress reliever. This is a mirror image of how food is "used" (abused) in, not only our culture, but many cultures today as well. (And if you think that there isn't a "coolness" factor to eating poorly, try being strict in every social situation and see what happens). The bummer for the ginormous tabacco industry was that slowly the general public became aware as well as incresingly educated about the horrific consequences of smoking cigs.

Well-marketed unhealthy foods, are paralleling the same exact path that cigarettes took. And the wrong foods, like cigarettes, can kill you. Moreover, these foods have the potential to kill you faster and in a much more brutal way than even cigarettes can! More on that later when I get into the gruesome details of how unhealthy foods wreak havoc on your body and directly cause some of the worst diseases known to humans.

My testimony is just one of the thousands upon thousands of testimonies out there that are what they are because of this way of eating. There are countless numbers of testimonies of how this diet improves your life. My favorite ones include the ones that get rid of diseases and conditions from depression, to diabetes, to arthritis, to Crohn's disease, to heart disease and literally virtually any condition or disease you can think of in Western society! Personally I've cured a handful of these diseases in dozens of people and the preventative applications are what excite me even more. Today, seemingly everyone dies from some sort of disease. Folks...it's not supposed to be that way. I assure you.

Now that I got my testimony out to you, albeit long-winded, tomorrow I'll give you some examples of people who prove this last statement and deliver some more applicable information that you can immediately begin to take advantage of.

- Did the fat nutritionists make the food pyramid or did the food pyramid make the nutritionists fat?

Coach Justin
PerformanceQuestFitness@gmail.com