Today, I’ll outline my Primal Program (as I’m calling it).
Just a quick note on insulin resistance (IR) because it’s important to know that I’ve designed this program specifically for me and it may possibly be helpful to others who have this condition.
IR is fairly easy to diagnose. I won’t go into the details. It is what is contributing to the obesity epidemic in children, leading to Type II diabetes in this young population that had been unseen previously. It’s serious. And, it can be managed and resolved.
There are a few variables that can contribute to one developing IR. In children we are seeing this phenomenon directly because of the food they are eating – refined sugars, white flour, processed foods, fast foods and industrial vegetable/seed oils. Kids getting this early are going to have a tough road ahead.
I never ate this kind of stuff when I was a kid because it was not available the way it is now. I never drank pop or had an abundance of sweets except maybe birthday cake. We didn’t eat fast food except Mcd’s occassionally and the way that food was made then is quite different than how it is made now.
Another contributing factor is stress – or lack of managing stress well. This is what I believe most affected me. We have a cascade of hormones that operate in tandum. One affects the other. The adrenals (stress hormones) affect insulin which affects the thyroid. So, back to the program. Obviouisly for me, if managing stress was part of the problem, it msut be addressed in the healing proces. And, I’ve been working on this for quite a while.
Here are my program strategies:
Diet Pattern
I’m pretty much going to follow the Primal Blueprint approach. Just got the book in the mail today. My guy, Stephan, gave it the thumbs up, so we shall see.
This will include:
Protein: All lean meat and fish
Carbs: Tons and tons of vegetables except starch
Fat: Animal fat – Olive Oil – Coconut Oil – no others.
Stephan Guyenet is beginning a discussion seriers on coconut oil today on his blog.
No: Processed foods, sugar of any kind (including fruit to start), dairy or grains. Previously I had bee neating brown rice and ths will also be eliminated.
Additionally, I was previously trying to eat 5-6 small mini-meals a day as that is what IR conventional thought is…keep blood sugar regulated and avoid spikes.
Well this never worked for me for many reasons. One is that it is torture trying to force feed myself all of these times – it’s like eating the lima beans.
So, I rarely got them in and the stupid alarm on my computer would go off all day reminding me of how I was not compliant. It’s been a complete pain and it hasn’t worked! I could barely get in 1,200 calories a day and this wasn’t helping.
Now, I’m going to eat when I’m hungry only. This alone is such a relief!
Exercise
Strength Training: 3 days per week (I was doing every other day now I’m only doing 3 to be able to include fasting days)
New Rules of Lifting for Women – I have been doing this program for quite a while now. There are 7 stages that can run from 6 months to a year.
I love this program; I love lifting. I love the intensity and power and the way it feels when I’m doing it and how it feels later. I have noticed a dramatic increase in my strength that just makes my life more enjoyable – for working and playing.
HIIT: High Intensity Interval Training – this is basically a fancy name for sprints. I love the exhilleration of this and I prefer doing it outside and not in a gym. Less in the gym, the better. I want to be outside.
Sports
I am doing all of this to improve the quality of my life. I love sports and want to be able to play them regularly and play them well. I will go on long bike trips and play tennis and shoot some hoop and play touch football and water ski and anything else that presents. And, I dance every morning – but that comes under the “joyful” category.
G.I. Health
I’m eliminating some foods, like dairy, because of sensitivities I supposedly have to them. They can cause inflammation that is unbelieveablly damaging and plays a key role in metabolism and body composition. And, we often don’t know it is happening – we don’t actually feel it. This is an easy blood test also to determine levels of inflammation. Additionally, I take a probiotic daily.
Intermittent Fasting
This is a new concept to me and I’ve spent the last week researching it extensively. When I say researching, I only mean searching out those I trust to see what they think. Because, no human studies have been done on this.
However, there is much anecdotal info that is quite compelling with respect to IR specifically – there are theories – they just haven’t been scientifically tested. Stephan from Whole Health Source does a 4 part series on Fat Set Point altering and he suggests that IF might very well aid in actually doing this and he says it can’t hurt.
I did my first fast last night beginning at 6 PM and it ended at 6 PM today. So, there’s never a day that goes by on a this type of fast when one won’t eat. And, it’s pretty easy for me as I never have much of an appetite, especially in the morning. I will start with 1 a week and move up to 2 fairly quickly.
Stress Management
Yoga – 2-5 x week
Meditation – daily – 1-2 hours – I do a couple of different kinds. One includes chakra healing / energy work which will be key in this healing process. These are detailed in my ILP on this site.
Morning walks
That’s it for now. This post was long enough! I’ll post how I plan to measure my progress in my weekly post on this topic next week.
Back to the other stuff I like to talk about…..!
