On Saturday I spent most of the day at the Everyday Paleo Seminar that my gym hosted listening to Sarah Fragoso and Jason Seib speak about the science behind Paleo and real life strategies for incorporating it into your life. Since I’ve embraced Paleo living for almost 3 years now I wasn’t expecting to go in and have my mind blown, but I was hoping to get a little re-energized.
For about 6 months I’ve been feeling stuck, health wise. I guess you could say I’ve been in a little bit of a rut. Mostly, to me, this means that I am making less forward progress than I would like and instead am doing more floundering than usual. But every time I start to feel upset with myself about all the floundering I’m doing, I think of this:
This is so true, right?
When I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels I try to realize that it is all a part of the process and then I just look for an opportunity to re-energize myself to move forward. This seminar really helped me do that.
It is a pretty great introduction to Paleo if you are not super familiar with it, but like I said, I already came pretty armed with the basics. I did write down a few notes and found myself evaluating a things I could do a little differently moving forward so I thought I’d share my random list of things that made me say “Oh, really?” This isn’t chronological in any way, or even good cliffs notes, but rather just a few facts I learned and bullets that got me thinking:
*I should to get back to my Vitamin D supplement
I used to be super good about this and then I got a little lazy. It’s pretty important though, so I’ll probably start supplementing again. I’m actually mostly anti-supplements (unless they are targeted and temporary), but this is an exception – and the dosage I used to take was recommended by my Naturopath so it wasn’t arbitrary. Jason recommended Liquid Vitamin D drops as the bio-availability is far superior.
*Chicken/Pork and Turkey are slightly higher in Omega 6s than Beef & Seafood
I thought this was interesting. Their recommendation for the best protein sources were good beef and wild caught cold water fish. Of course they weren’t saying ONLY eat those two things, but to just consider that when selecting your variety.
*Selenium makes the Mercury in fish inert
This was kind of a fun fact too, I thought. If you are getting enough selenium, you really don’t need to be fraught with worry about mercury in your fish.
*Focus on Fat Loss and not Weight Loss
I’ve mentioned this sentiment numerous times here but the more I hear it, the more I want to pump my fist in the air when people say it. And Jason walked through the science of why lifting weights is so good for your body and why “cardio” does a lot more harm than good when it comes to getting healthy. Of course I can’t explain it in an articulate way, but it did make me feel a little more energized to lift.
*Skinny is not the opposite of fat. Healthy is the opposite of fat. Healthy is also the opposite of skinny.
Pursue health over aesthetics and the aesthetics will come.
*You can eat super clean and work out really hard but if you are not managing stress and getting good sleep, none of it matters
This was especially powerful for me to hear. It is something I know, and something that I have worked hard on in the past (especially getting good sleep — and now I’m a pro! haha) but definitely with this new job I need to make sure I am keeping my stress in check! Jason recommended this book and I ordered it from Amazon while I was still at the seminar. I love technology!
*****
So, like I said — not great cliffs notes or anything, but just a few of the things I left thinking about. It’s nice to get re-energized about your health and this definitely gave me some new food for thought. It’s nice to be thinking about some of this stuff again.
I’ve been all over the place since I finished my whole21. I just ordered It Starts With Food and The Happiness Project off amazon… so I’m excited to get re-energized 🙂
Aw, I love these thoughts. “Skinny is not the opposite of fat. Healthy is the opposite of fat. Healthy is also the opposite of skinny.” Golden!
I also read this quote recently:
“Excess body fat is not a sign of over-eating or under-exercise, it’s a sign of an unhealthy body.” and that was sort of a game changing mind shift for me too. I always feel like “Oh gee, I still have weight to lose, I must need to tweak my diet or exercise routine.” But sometimes it is not always that. Sometimes it is OTHER health indicators that need to be examined (sleep, stress, quality of life issues, hormone issues, mobility issues, etc) and half the time we don’t even take those things into consideration.
Hmmmm…this may be fuel for a future post, but I just felt like sharing. (Coming Attractions. haha)
It’s nice to hear someone else say just how important stress management is to bettering your health. It’s the single biggest hurdle to my success. Any stress management tips?
Oh man, I am the worst at stress management. I have to work EXTREMELY hard just to recognize when I am stressed because it is sort of a constant for me. I’m trying 1) to be aware and when I finally acknowledge that I am stressed 2) figure out why it’s working for me to stay in that state instead of change it.
It’s totally me bogarting Dr. Phil (random), but he always says to figure out why crappy things “are working for you” in your life, and that’s the first step to changing them. I do find this to be true. Usually when I am allowing myself to be victimized by something, there is some pay off for me (ie: feeling validated by busyness, getting recognition or sympathy, whatever…) so when I work to find “that need” somewhere else, instead of letting a stressful situation carry on, it usually helps me re-prioritize. Did that make ANY sense? 🙂
Ah these points are so interesting. My doctor has been yelling at me for years to remember to take my Vitamin D. I’m always low no matter how much time I spend outside. Thinking I need to just bring a bottle and leave it on my desk at work.
Also the chicken/turkey/pork thing blew my mind. I think just about every health diet out there says to choose “lean meats” aka chicken or turkey. So occasionally I wonder if I’m relying on beef too much and should force myself to eat more chicken. But now I feel a lot better.
On that note, I wonder if it’s because it’s harder to find good quality chicken and turkey than finding quality beef. I was just at the grocery store yesterday and picked up some grass-fed beef. But when I looked at the turkey, all I could think about was the genetically modified gross giant turkeys and just couldn’t buy it anymore.
You know, that could totally be true. And honestly it’s the reason we sometimes eat so much beef is because it’s so much easier (and cheaper) to find reliably sourced beef around here than chicken.
I needed to “hear” someone else hit on those points: that skinny isn’t the opposite of fat but healthy is. And that focusing on your health will bring you the physical that we each desire.
Also, I can relate on the stress and sleep. I once had a great personal trainer say that if you are in a stressful point in your life, focus on physical exercise as a stress-reducer not as a weight-loss, during the stressful time period. And give yourself the space to make exercise as a stress-reliever acceptable and not beat yourself up if it is not always viewed as a weight-loss. My ahh-ha moment today was releasing myself from my body issues during a very stressful period right now. That was a huge weight off my shoulders.
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