Education

Hormesis 101: Why Hormetic Stress Is Good For You

by
Hormetic Stree

The word “stress” evokes negative emotions. We are reminded constantly to “reduce stress” in our lives to improve our well-being. But did you know there is such a thing as “good stress”? Hormesis is the word for this type of stress, which is the body’s adaptive response to stressors. Hormesis or “hormetic stress” refers to the … Read more

Paleo in Maryland: Steamed Crabs

by
Maryland steamed crab

I’m a very crabby guy.

But when I say crabby, I don’t mean curmudgeonly or cantankerous, although I’ve occasionally been accused of both.

I mean I love to eat crabs. Steamed crabs.

Maryland steamed crabServe’em up with some ice-cold beer on a picnic table covered with old newspaper and in my humble opinion, you’ve pretty much achieved Nirvana.

But that’s because I’m from Maryland, where steamed crabs are more than food – they’re a way of life. Marylanders have been gorging themselves on steamed crabs since the first settlers paddled up the Chesapeake Bay in 1634, and even before that if you consider Native American tribes like the Nanticoke and the Powhatan.

There was a time when hardly anyone outside of the Delmarva Peninsula – that’s where Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia all collide on the eastern side of the Chesapeake – ate much crabs, but that’s changed in recent years. It’s not hard to get a decent crab cake in most American cities nowadays, but steamed crabs? That’s a different story!

So whenever Lea and I visit my Mom & Dad on Maryland’s eastern shore, we make a point to have steamed crabs. Lea, a native Texan, had never had steamed crabs before she met me, but after 15 years of marriage she can tear into them with gusto! She also likes that eating steamed crabs fits in well with her lower-carb, paleo diet.

Now…a little bit about the crabs, themselves. The ones that we eat in Maryland are called Callinectes sappidus, which means “tasty beautiful swimmer” in Latin. But that’s a mouthful for a Marylander, so we just call them “Blue crabs,” which makes sense because before they get tossed in the pot they actually are…blue.

(Photo of Blue Crab previously posted is Copyright  John T. Consoli)

We like to think of blue crabs as our own, but the truth is they’re found all the way from Nova Scotia down into the Gulf of Mexico and even as far south as Argentina! Good thing, too, because due to over-fishing, most of the crabs we eat are imported from Louisiana! No matter, they’re still blue crabs, and nobody does them like they’re done in Maryland…sorry, Virginia!

Read more

Women of Color Going Back to Basics for Health

by

The recent Ladies’ Day Event, where I gave a presentation Happy, Healthy and Free, was attended by a majority of African-American women and other women of color. The information presented really seemed to resonate with many of the attendees for several reasons. After the presentation I had the opportunity to have lunch with some of these interesting ladies and find out a bit more about them. In the course of our conversations, a few things stood out as very significant and relevant to my topic of health.

One of the women at my table was Wendy. Wendy, who is 68 years old, explained how she is not currently on any medications. That’s pretty impressive given our medicated society. So I asked Wendy a few more questions to find out if there are any clues to her seeming good health. It turns out she is from Barbados. Could this make a difference? Hmmm…..

Before I tell you more about Wendy and her background, let’s first take a look at the broader problem as it relates specifically to women of color. Alice Randall, writer in residence at Vanderbilt University, and an African-American woman herself, wrote an interesting opinion piece for The New York Times this past weekend. In her article, Black Women and Fat, Ms. Randall points out four out of five black women are seriously overweight and one in four middle-aged black women has diabetes. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, blacks have 51 percent higher obesity rates than whites. In addition to pointing out some facts and figures on disease states and obesity rates, Alice Randall delves into some of the cultural reasons that may be contributing to this situation. She points out that it is part of the cultural heritage to be bigger and that husbands sometimes revolt when faced with the prospect of their wives losing weight. But Ms. Randall advises that in spite of any cultural push against it, things need to change:

The billions that we are spending to treat diabetes is money that we don’t have for education reform or retirement benefits, and what’s worse, it’s estimated that the total cost of America’s obesity epidemic could reach almost $1 trillion by 2030 if we keep on doing what we have been doing.

During a public lecture at Harvard University recently, biologist Daniel Lieberman suggested that exercise for everyone should be mandated by law. Alice Randall was appalled and noted the applause came from a bunch of “thin affluent people” applauding the idea of “forcing fatties, many of whom are dark, poor and exhausted, to exercise.” She goes on to express her view that government mandated exercise is a “vicious concept” but acknowledges the “cost of too many people getting too fat is too high.”

Read more

Happy, Healthy and Free

by

“What we think, we become.”

It was my honor and privilege to be one of the speakers at a Ladies Day event yesterday hosted by the Bridgewater Church of Christ (at Garretson Rd) . The theme of the event was “Do You Know Who I Am?” and my topic was “Happy, Healthy and Free”. This is a subject very near and dear to my heart because I am very passionate about health and fitness for the WHOLE person Mind, Body, Soul and Spirit.

The starting point for my talk was the Bible verse Luke 2:52

Jesus grew in wisdom, and in stature, and in favor with God and Man.

That verse encapsulates the entire 18 year period of Jesus’ growth from age 12 to the beginning of his ministry at the age of 30. It tells us that He grew mentally, physically, spiritually and socially. And I propose that we too need to focus on growing in these areas of our lives in order to be well-rounded individuals. I proposed how, instead of Happy, Healthy and Free, we are often Sick, Stressed and Depressed. This is something with which I am familiar because I have been all three of those things at certain points in my life. I shared some of what I have learned about the Mind-Body connection and how our bodies respond to stress. And lest anyone think that focusing on our own health is somehow self-indulgent, I argued that we NEED to work at our health in order to become more pleasing and useful to God.

What we think, we become. And just as the Lao Tzu quote expresses, our habits become our character which becomes our destiny. With that in mind, and through my own experiences, I have come up with Ten Healthy Habits for the Well-Rounded Person:

Read more

How to Poach an Egg

by
poached egg on tomato

poached egg on tomato

Favorite Way to Eat Poached Eggs

How do you feel about Eggs Benedict? Personally, it’s a favorite dish that was a consistent restaurant brunch selection prior to my going gluten-free. There’s the rare restaurant that carries a gluten-free English muffin to go with the poached eggs, but most times I have to pass. The best way to have the dish is to make it at home and that means learning to poach eggs. Through some experimentation and practice I finally mastered the technique.

Quality Eggs

Eggs have been on my mind lately and I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the arrival of Spring and the colorful eggs of Easter traditions. It could be my admiration for the beautiful Ameraucanas chickens belonging to a neighbor. Or perhaps my preoccupation with eggs is a direct result of a recent trip to a garden center that displayed very fancy chicken coops. That got me dreaming of the day when I can have my own chickens. I found myself longing for one of those little dwellings outfitted with automatic feeders and waterers and boasting such luxuries as copper gutters. Never mind the $5,000 (well, $4,999) price tag because it comes with FOUR chickens! What a deal! Unfortunately, my husband quickly nixed my fantasy of a luxury chicken coop. And it remains to be seen if he’s volunteering to build one for us this year. So for now I will have to settle for enjoying the farm fresh eggs offered by a couple of my neighbors.

Eggs from “Easter Egger” chickens are gorgeous and they have been the subjects of many a private photo shoot at our house. The photo below is enhanced via Instagram but these are actual eggs that have not been colored or dyed. Amazing. Beautiful.

So far I have mastered (I think) the scrambled egg, the fried egg “over-easy” and “over-medium”, and hard-boiled eggs. Next up on the agenda is poached eggs. When I was in Austin, TX recently for Paleo FX, I was able to meet up with a friend of mine for lunch at a restaurant called Perla’s Seafood and Oyster Bar. We ordered from the brunch menu which boasted a number of creative and paleo-friendly (with a little tweaking) dishes. We both chose the Crab Florentine Eggs Benedict – without the English Muffin, of course. It was delicious and ever since then I have been on a mission to recreate this dish at home. The problem is it requires the skill to successfully poach eggs and this is something I had yet to master.

Read more

Paleo FX 2012: Movement and Fitness

by

In addition to lectures and Mastermind panel discussions, the Paleo FX Ancestral Momentum – Theory to Practice Symposium included several movement and fitness sessions. I tried to plan my schedule so I could participate in a few movement sessions without missing too many other things of special interest. Here are some highlights from the main fitness/movements sessions I attended.

MovNat

One of my main goals was to attend a MovNat session. MovNat was founded by Erwan Le Corre who has been proclaimed “one of the fittest men in the world” and a “fitness visionary” by Men’s Health magazine.

Erwan Le Corre via www.movnat.com

MovNat is a physical education and fitness system based entirely on using the full range of our natural, human-specific movements and is aimed at the real-world competency and conditioning that allows optimum physical and mental development.

There are thirteen basic MovNat movement skills:

  1. Lifting
  2. Carrying
  3. Throwing
  4. Catching
  5. Striking
  6. Grappling
  7. Walking
  8. Running
  9. Balancing
  10. Jumping
  11. Crawling
  12. Climbing
  13. Swimming

Here’s a short video that gives some examples of a MovNat workout.

Our instructor Brian led us through some MovNat skill training.

Read more

Paleo FX 2012: Opening Night

by

I just returned from an exciting trip to Paleo FX in Austin, TX, March 14-17. Rather than writing one huge tome about my experience, it makes more sense to break it up into pieces. So I will start by simply explaining the nature of the event with some photos of some of the cool people in attendance on opening night. In future posts I can get into more details about the presentations and fitness sessions. If you want to know more about it right away, there are several great write-ups already posted in the paleo blogosphere. (Check out this post and video).

The PaleoFX Ancestral Momentum – Theory to Practice Symposium was a multi-day, hands-on event. It was a collaboration among fitness and healthcare professionals, nutritionists, research scientists and laypersons seeking to address modern health challenges through the application of ancestral based theory in practice. In other words, lots of folks with different backgrounds got together to explore how to put paleo diet and fitness information into action in a practical way. It was held at The Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports on the campus of the University of Texas – Austin. As a graduate of staunch rival Texas A&M University, this was a slight conflict of interest for me! The Stark Center overlooks the football field and I felt like I was in “the belly of the beast” so to speak.

Texas Memorial Stadium
Texas Memorial Stadium

Read more

“Food Activist” or Freedom Fighter?

by

This is not a political blog. Paleo Spirit is primarily a food blog that emphasizes the paleo way of eating and a healthy lifestyle that explores ways to improve “fitness” in all areas of our life – mind, body and soul. I want to be welcoming to people of all different persuasions and I know there are some readers who will be turned off at the mere mention of something that falls into the political realm. However, I had an interesting experience that I would like to share. And in my opinion this discussion could be categorized under “mind” because we should all make ourselves as educated as possible in order to navigate effectively in our world.

There is so much that goes on in politics that affects our lives and that includes how much control the government exercises over us. I am a strong believer in freedom and individual responsibility. And one of the ways we can lose freedom is when the government has enough power to tell us how and what to eat. For those of us who have seen and experienced the negative results of following the “Conventional Wisdom” of healthy eating, as espoused by the U.S. government (low-fat, high carb, etc…), we can attest to the fact government does not always know best. And this is not a liberal or conservative issue, it is a life or death issue.

I was motivated to call The Rush Limbaugh Program on March 9th because I heard him quoting, at length, from an article written by heart surgeon Dr. Dwight Lundell. “Heart Surgeon Speaks Out On What Really Causes Heart Disease”  In the course of quoting Dr. Lundell, Rush Limbaugh also expressed his view that it is liberal “food activists” who are imploring the government to “step in and save us” by implementing regulations that seek to alter our freedoms by positioning themselves as our “guardians”. Later in his remarks, Mr. Limbaugh pointed out the importance of individual freedom in the realm of dietary choices. I knew I wanted to call the program to let Rush know there are those of us who might consider ourselves “food activists” in a sense and yet do not seek to force our views and dietary decisions on others. We seek to educate and, in some cases, advocate for change in government activities.

Think about whether or not you are in favor of laws banning the sale of raw milk. And note how government subsidies of the corn industry change the marketplace and consider those ramifications. Then there was the recent story of the pre-school girl whose homemade lunch (turkey and cheese sandwich, chips, banana and apple juice) was inspected and deemed unsatisfactory by school officials. This child was forced to purchase the “more nutritious” school lunch which consisted of chicken nuggets! Regardless of your personal views of her homemade lunch, do you really want the government mandating what a child must be fed? Adherents of the paleo diet choose not to eat grains. Do you really like the prospect of the government forcing you to feed your child “whole grains” because it is supposedly “healthier”? I certainly do not!

It is a freedom issue, pure and simple.

Read more