Check It Out: Tanka Bars

If a snack somes in a shiny, colorful wrapper -- Fritos! Little Debbies! Pop Tarts! -- it's probably not good for you. But face it: We occasionally need a shelf-stable snack to throw into our bags. Backpackers and bodybuilders aren't the only ones who need a protein bar every now and then. Sometimes, when a work meeting drifts past noon and the office orders in mayo-drenched sandwiches, corn chips and chocolate chip cookies, we need to pull out an emergency snack from the dark, linty recesses of our bags. And that nasty Ziplock filled with stale almonds and rancid jerky won't do.

Snack bars seem like a good idea. But which one do you choose? These days, supermarket shelves are crammed with a dizzying number of different protein and/or meal replacement bars. Examples include:

• Clif Bars and PowerBars (for carb-fueled energy!) 
• Pure Protein Bars and Met-RX Protein Plus Bars (for aspiring he-men!) 
• thinkThin and Full Bars (for those looking to starve themselves thin!)
• Raw Revolution Bars and Pro Bars (for raw food vegan hippies!)
• KIND BARs and LARABARs (for Whole Foods shoppers who love ALL CAPS!)

It's overwhelming -- another example of the paradox of choice. As a result, most shoppers are left baffled, and will probably stick to what's familiar -- even if it tastes horrible and isn't particularly good for them.

Thankfully, for us Paleo eaters, the pickings are actually kind of slim. (Don't be fooled into thinking, for example, that "PaleoBars" are actually Paleo at all. The ingredients include grains, dairy, and a whole lot of laboratory-generated stuff I can't pronounce.)

One of the very few decent choices: LARABARs. They're Paleo/Primal-friendly. The non-chocolate flavors are free of soy, dairy and added sugar, and none of 'em contain gluten. They're made with just a handful of whole food ingredients -- mostly fruit and nuts.

We have some LARABARs in our pantry, and I'm not averse to breaking one out every once in a blue moon.

Still, I'm not crazy about the amount of sugar in LARABARs. Most flavors contain 18 to 24 grams of sugar -- mostly, I would guess, from the fruit. The primary ingredient of most LARABAR varieties is one or more high glycemic fruits like dates or bananas -- and since I don't tend to eat a lot of sugary fruits these days, I'm also not making a habit of chowing down on LARABARs.

So what's at the bottom of my briefcase?

Answer: Tanka Bars.

Tanka Bars are gluten- and hormone-free meat snacks made by a company started by Lakota Indians on their reservation in South Dakota. The Bars are a modern take on traditional wasna or pemmican, but leaner. (Bison is grassfed and naturally lean, and unlike pemmican, Tanka Bars don't appear to incorporate a lot of fat.) 


The ingredients? Buffalo, dried cranberries, sea salt, red pepper, onion, garlic, and lactic acid starter culture. There's some added sugar in the dried cranberries, but I'm not too concerned; it's a small amount, and (as with lots of cured meat products) the lactic acid starter culture eats it. As a point of comparison, a Tanka Bar contains 6 grams of sugar -- one-third or one-fourth the amount found in a LARABAR -- which itself isn't exactly high-carb.

I've tried the original Tanka Bar as well as the "Spicy Pepper Blend" version. The latter is my favorite of the two (though I wish was even spicier), but both are pretty damned good. like a moist, slightly-sweet, less-chewy version of buffalo jerky. I've also bought a bunch of bags of Tanka Bites -- which I think are essentially cut-up pieces of Tanka Bars. They're a great choice, too, because sometimes, just one bar isn't enough.

And don't tell me this video doesn't give you the warm and fuzzies about Native American Natural Foods, the makers of Tanka Bars:

I'm not the only fan of Tanka Bars; the Denver Post recently published a short but glowing review, and Mark Sisson has recommended 'em, too.

Don't kick yourself if you haven't noticed Tanka Bars at your corner store -- they aren't (yet?) available at most supermarkets. Currently, the best place to find 'em are at REI stores, natural/health food stores (I ain't talking about GNC or Vitamin Shoppe, people), and on Tanka's online store. (And for those of you Luddites who refuse to buy stuff online, Tanka's website has a handy store locator, too.)

Also: Until December 31, you can use the online coupon code TANKAHOLIDAYS to get 15% off all the regularly-priced stuff on Tanka's website. So check 'em out.

Check It Out: Offal Good

Chris Cosentino doesn't post very often (probably because he's busy running San Francisco's Incanto and Boccalone), but I enjoy his blog, Offal Good, which is devoted to organ meats and other animal parts that make most Americans squeamish. It's a shrine to head-to-tail eating -- the most sustainable (and Paleo-friendly) way to eat meat.

Bonus: Offal Good sells the best T-shirt ever:

Check It Out: Robb Wolf's "The Paleo Solution"

I'm an unabashed fan of Robb Wolf's. Robb is, among other things, a former research biochemist, Loren Cordain disciple, powerlifting champ, unfairly excommunicated CrossFit affiliate owner, and a current owner of one of Men's Health's top 30 gyms in the country -- and in just a few years' time, he's become one of the paleo movement's biggest names and greatest assets.

For months, I've been soaking up everything I can from Cordain, Sisson, the Eades, et al., but Robb's weekly "Paleolithic Solution" podcast has been my go-to resource for all things paleo. It's incredibly informative and entertaining, with Robb (and co-host Andy Deas) answering questions from the peanut gallery.

For as long as I've been listening, Robb's been working on a book about paleo nutrition and fitness. As soon as it was available for pre-order on Amazon, I bought it. But even though the book was finally -- FINALLY -- released last Tuesday, my copy wasn't delivered until the end of last week. (With most other book purchases, I wouldn't have given a crap. But I found myself actually getting pissed every day I came home to find that "The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet" hadn't yet arrived. That's how much I was looking forward to reading Robb's book.)

I'm still reading it (and sharing with M, who's also digging it), but "The Paleo Solution" has already become my favorite book about the science behind and implementation of a paleo lifestyle. It's reader-friendly (unlike Gary Taubes' excellent but dense "Good Calories, Bad Calories"), but not too Reader's Digest-y (a quibble I have with Mark Sisson's "The Primal Blueprint," which is narratively compelling but skips over a lot of the science underpinning the paleo/primal approach).



I'll try to post a more comprehensive review once I actually finish the book, but in the meantime (if you haven't already jumped on the bandwagon), you can read an excerpt of Robb's book yourself over at Tim Ferriss' blog.

Check It Out: Mobility WOD

Mobility WOD is only four days old, but if Kelly Starrett keeps posting videos every day, it's going to quickly become one of the most popular blogs among CrossFit enthusiasts.

Starrett -- a.k.a. K-Star -- is the founder of San Francisco CrossFit, and one of CrossFit's most popular coaches and sought-after speakers. He has a doctorate in physical therapy, and teaches CrossFit's Mobility Certification program. And according to his web bio, Starrett's clients include "Olympic gold medalists, world-class extreme skiers and X-Games medalists, dancers with Smuin, San Francisco and Sacramento Ballet Companies, military personnel, and competitive age-division athletes." As a whitewater rafter, Starrett also led his team to "to two national titles and competition in two world Championships."

More importantly (to me, anyway), he's able to be entertaining while imparting a wealth of good information, which is what keeps me coming back to the short videos he's been posting on his new blog. Mobility WOD's daily mission is to prescribe a different sub-10 minute routine that helps you stretch and treat your aching body parts. Or, as Starrett puts it: "This blog is intended as a jump off point for athletes to systematically begin to address their nasty tissues and grody joint mobility."

Here's an example of one of Starrett's casually breezy but oh-so-awesomely educational videos:



I, for one, woke up this morning with  soreness in my hammies, shoulders and hip flexors. Instead of diving into yet another workout (smell you later, deadlifts), I opted to spend some quality time with Mobility WOD on my iPad, working my way through this week's videos.

Surf on over to Starrett's site and check out the videos. There's a good chance you'll get hooked on a new daily stretching routine.

Check It Out: The Barefoot Running Book

It's been a while since Jason Robillard was kind enough to send me a review copy of "The Barefoot Running Book: A Practical Guide to the Art & Science of Barefoot & Minimalist Shoe Running" -- an excellent primer on running unshod.* My review, however, has been delayed -- and not because it took me a long time to get through the slim, 61-page volume. The truth: I'd wanted to try out Jason's running program before writing about it, but with CrossFit dominating my exercise time of late, I've not been doing much running (outside of my WODs). I'm feeling slightly guilty about writing about something I've not managed to put into practice lately. But my feelings of guilt over procrastination finally prevailed over my feelings of guilt over not doing more barefoot running, so at long last, here's my review.

In a nutshell: Regardless of whether you're a lapsed, current or prospective runner, you'll find a lot of useful information about barefoot running crammed into Jason's book. And if you're serious about running without footwear, Jason's book may just be the best single resource on how to transition from a tentative barefoot walker to an expert barefoot runner.

In case you're not familiar with Jason Robillard, he's a Michigan-based teacher, author and ultramarathoner (who somehow also finds the time to run the Barefoot Running University website, a motherlode of resources on footwear-free running). Here's how he describes his running workouts:

I routinely train on a variety of terrain, including asphalt roads, concrete sidewalks, sandy beaches, woodchip trails, dirt trails, and a few other varied surfaces. I train in a variety of conditions, ranging from the heat of summer to the bitter cold of winter. So far, I've been able to run in snow as long as the temperature stays above 20 degrees. My training mileage peaks around 100 miles per week about a month before major goal races. Almost all of this training is done barefoot.

In his book, Jason covers virtually anything one could ever ask about barefoot running (including which minimalist shoes to buy, and how to handle everything from blisters and bad weather to cross-training and hecklers). The book is organized according to a 12-week, four-stage training progression: "Pre-Running," "Starting to Run Barefoot," "Intermediate Barefoot Running," and "Advanced Barefoot Running." In each chapter, Jason gradually adds layers of technical skills and training concepts in bite-sized chunks, and before you know it, you've added fartleks and hill training to your shoe-free runs.

And unlike a lot of barefoot gurus who may come across to some as crazy-eyed, bearded hippie cultists, Jason is anything but. His everyman persona is reassuring even to those who find the concept of running without shoes faddish and bizarre. Plus, Jason's writing style is entertainingly wry and engaging: Instead of a dry instruction manual, "The Barefoot Running Book" reads like a casual (but super-informative) dinner conversation, sprinkled with lines like "[t]here is as much research supporting the use of modern running shoes as there is supporting the existence of unicorns, Sasquatch and funny Pauly Shore movies."

Jason lays out a structured training plan for those who are curious and intrepid enough to venture out without shoes, but instead of focusing solely on different activities to master, he takes frequent breaks to educate readers about concepts to keep in mind while running barefoot. (My favorite: "Run Like a Ninja.")

Finally, it's kind of awesome that Jason gives a shout-out to his local CrossFit affiliate in the final pages of his book, and shares a number of CrossFit moves that add variety and intensity to his training. (With the exception of Olympic lifting, I try to do just about all of my CrossFit workouts in Vibram FiveFingers or barefoot, and I definitely recommend giving it a shot.)

If you're mesmerized by Christopher McDougall's "Born to Run" and contemplating going barefoot on your training runs, I can't think of a better starting point than "The Barefoot Running Book."

*Full disclosure: Yes, I got a free review copy of the book from Jason, but trust me: My review is unbiased. When it comes to criticism, I'm not known to hold back, but I would have given "The Barefoot Running Book" a thumbs-up even if I'd just happened across it on Amazon.)

Check It Out: Power to the People

Pavel Tsatsouline is nothing if not prolific. Over the past few months, I've already read a couple of his books (Enter the Kettlebell and The Naked Warrior), but a quick glance at his online store makes clear that there's no end in sight to his "Evil Russian"-style brand of training advice. 

I'm now making my way through Tsatsouline's "Power to the People," a book focused on building raw strength through daily practice of just two exercises: deadlifts and presses.

The "Russian strength secret" that Tsatsouline teaches in "Power to the People" can be summarized in one sentence: "Train heavy, but keep the volume, or the total number of reps per workout, low." Why? So we can "minimize the amount of 'torn down' muscle -- and the reconstruction that follows." 

This approach won't turn anyone into a bodybuilder because the point isn't to grow big-ass muscles. Rather, the focus is on gaining "wiry strength" such that "[m]ost likely your measurements will not increase, while your weight will go up a few pounds. the packing density of your muscles' contractile proteins has increased, the first thing to happen when 'real' muscle growth takes place." By periodizing and increasing the amount of weight that's being lifted but without going to exhaustion, Tsatsouline says, you can steadily enhance your full-body strength without constantly destroying and rebuilding the muscles in your body

Sounds good to me. My health and fitness goals don't include bulking up or becoming a bodybuilder. I do, however, want to get stronger, and I definitely want to improve my deadlift. So this program sounds like it's worth a shot.

Whole9 modified/customized Tsatsouline's "Power to the People" program by adding some warm-ups and metcons to the deadlifts and presses. It's simple and easy to follow, which is a big part of why I've decided to try it starting today. On the days I don't head to my CrossFit class, I'm going to follow the Whole9 program and see where it can take me in 2-3 months' time.

Hence, my workout today was cribbed directly from Whole9:

DAY ONE

Buy-in: 3 rounds of 0:20 handstand hold + 15 KB swings (Russian) + 10 plyo box jumps

Deadlift: Warm up with some DLs at lighter weight

• Set 1: 60% of 1RM, 3-5 reps
• Set 2: 90% of Set 1, 3-5 reps

Press: Warm up with some presses at lighter weight

• Set 1: 60% of 1RM, 3-5 reps
• Set 2: 90% of Set 1, 3-5 reps

Cash out: 3 rounds for time of 30 Double-Unders + 15 Hanging Knees-to-Elbows

I followed Whole9's directions carefully and used weights that felt too light for me. I'm sure it'll get harder as the program progresses, but right now, I can't see how this is going to get me that much stronger.

Still, the full workout wiped me out completely. I'm nodding off while typing this. Time for bed.

Check It Out: Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferriss, author of the bestselling self-help book, The 4-Hour Workweek, is full of himself -- a trait I don't appreciate in most people (besides myself), but for some reason, it totally works for Ferriss. Yes, he brags a lot (check out his book for self-glorifying anecdotes about his phenomenal successes in business, martial arts, ballroom dancing, learning Japanese, etc.), but unlike some people, he's not all talk -- he's the real deal. Here are some snippets from his Wikipedia entry:

Ferriss founded BrainQUICKEN, a San Jose-based online company that sells sports nutrition supplements. He sold the company in January 2009 to an unnamed private equity firm. He is now a full-time angel investor and has invested in the following companies: Twitter, Posterous, DailyBurn (formerly Gyminee), Reputation Defender, Foodzie, Badongo, Rescue Time, and SimpleGeo. He also acts as an advisor to StumbleUpon and Shopify, which he has alluded to in interviews with Kevin Rose are in exchange for equity.

He holds the Guinness Book of World Records' record for the most consecutive tango-spins in one minute. Ferriss and his dance partner Alicia Monti set the record live on the show Live with Regis and Kelly. Prior to his writing career, Ferriss served as an advisor to professional athletes and Olympians and was a National Chinese Kickboxing Champion, a title he won through a process of shoving opponents out of the ring for which he was nicknamed "sumo." In 2008, he won Wired Magazine's "Greatest Self-Promoter of All Time" prize and was named one of Fast Company's "Most Innovative Business People of 2007." Ferriss has also spoken at the EG Conference.

His show "Trial By Fire" aired on the History Channel in December 2008. In the show, Ferriss had one week to attempt to learn a skill normally learned over the course of many years and in the pilot episode he practiced the Japanese art of horseback archery, Yabusame. 

And the guy's only 33. God, I'm a slacker.

I picked up Ferriss' book some time ago and have been slowly adopting some of his productivity tips (using Evernote to organize my cluttered life, for example). But I only recently started checking out his blog, which contains some useful information about personal fitness and nutrition. For example:

• Preeminent kettlement guru Pavel Tsatsouline posted a guest article on Ferriss' blog about maximizing gains and efficiency in powerlifting:

• Ferriss has also invited Dr. Michael Eades to discuss why calorie-counting is a pseudo-science, and how counting carbs is the key. (One of the reasons I'm a fan of Ferriss is that he's solidly in the Gary Taubes low-carb camp.)

• I'm a terrible swimmer, so it was eye-opening to read about how Ferriss quickly (in ten days!) became a strong swimmer after a lifetime of being afraid of the water.

• Ferriss shares how he gained 34 pounds of muscle in 4 weeks using something he calls "Four-Hour Fitness."

• He writes about how to figure out what the labeling on meat products really mean.

• Ferriss is into Vibram FiveFingers.

• And most importantly, he describes how to properly "peel" a hard-boiled egg:

Check It Out: Good Calories, Bad Calories

If the members of the American medical establishment were to have a collective find-yourself-standing-naked-in-Times-Square-type nightmare, this might be it. They spend 30 years ridiculing Robert Atkins, author of the phenomenally-best-selling ''Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution'' and ''Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution,'' accusing the Manhattan doctor of quackery and fraud, only to discover that the unrepentant Atkins was right all along. Or maybe it's this: they find that their very own dietary recommendations -- eat less fat and more carbohydrates -- are the cause of the rampaging epidemic of obesity in America. Or, just possibly this: they find out both of the above are true.

So begins Gary Taubes' thought-provoking and spectacularly polarizing July 2002 cover article for the New York Times Magazine entitled "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" Taubes, an award-winning science journalist, points out that well into the 1970s, the scientific consensus was that diets high in "sugars and starches" -- in other words, carbs -- caused obesity. Up until that point, "the accepted wisdom was that fat and protein protected against overeating by making you sated, and that carbohydrates made you fat." Thirty years ago,

you could still find articles in the journals describing high rates of obesity in Africa and the Caribbean where diets contained almost exclusively carbohydrates. The common thinking, wrote a former director of the Nutrition Division of the United Nations, was that the ideal diet, one that prevented obesity, snacking and excessive sugar consumption, was a diet ''with plenty of eggs, beef, mutton, chicken, butter and well-cooked vegetables.'' This was the identical prescription Brillat-Savarin put forth in 1825.

But over the past three decades, "we've been told with almost religious certainty by everyone from the surgeon general on down, and we have come to believe with almost religious certainty, that obesity is caused by the excessive consumption of fat, and that if we eat less fat we will lose weight and live longer."

What explains the shift in conventional wisdom? In 1977, "a Senate committee led by George McGovern published its 'Dietary Goals for the United States,' advising that Americans significantly curb their fat intake to abate an epidemic of 'killer diseases' supposedly sweeping the country," and "peaked in late 1984, when the National Institutes of Health officially recommended that all Americans over the age of 2 eat less fat." But according to Taubes, the reported increase in heart diseases that triggered these conclusions was wrong, and there was (is) no evidence to support the hypothesis that consumption of meat and dairy products had led to a dramatic uptick in heart disease. In the 1980s, the N.I.H. spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying -- and failing -- to link fatty diets with heart disease, but on a "leap of faith," posited nonetheless that the link existed. And "once the N.I.H. signed off on the low-fat doctrine, societal forces took over":

The food industry quickly began producing thousands of reduced-fat food products to meet the new recommendations. Fat was removed from foods like cookies, chips and yogurt. The problem was, it had to be replaced with something as tasty and pleasurable to the palate, which meant some form of sugar, often high-fructose corn syrup. Meanwhile, an entire industry emerged to create fat substitutes, of which Procter & Gamble's olestra was first. And because these reduced-fat meats, cheeses, snacks and cookies had to compete with a few hundred thousand other food products marketed in America, the industry dedicated considerable advertising effort to reinforcing the less-fat-is-good-health message. Helping the cause was what Walter Willett calls the ''huge forces'' of dietitians, health organizations, consumer groups, health reporters and even cookbook writers, all well-intended missionaries of healthful eating.

The message was loud and clear: Go low-fat. Eat carbs instead. For decades, this mantra was pounded into our heads by academics, health professionals, agribusiness and marketers alike. But these days, it's become widely accepted that carbs spike insulin production, which in turns triggers weight gain. And "[f]ew experts now deny that the low-fat message is radically oversimplified."

If nothing else, it effectively ignores the fact that unsaturated fats, like olive oil, are relatively good for you: they tend to elevate your good cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (H.D.L.), and lower your bad cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (L.D.L.), at least in comparison to the effect of carbohydrates. While higher L.D.L. raises your heart-disease risk, higher H.D.L. reduces it...

But it gets even weirder than that. Foods considered more or less deadly under the low-fat dogma turn out to be comparatively benign if you actually look at their fat content. More than two-thirds of the fat in a porterhouse steak, for instance, will definitively improve your cholesterol profile (at least in comparison with the baked potato next to it); it's true that the remainder will raise your L.D.L., the bad stuff, but it will also boost your H.D.L. The same is true for lard. If you work out the numbers, you come to the surreal conclusion that you can eat lard straight from the can and conceivably reduce your risk of heart disease.

I'm not saying you should immediately run screaming from carbs and start stocking up on lard. But it's worth checking out Taubes' claims for yourself.

I've just begun reading Taube's 2007 book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, and will post a review when I'm done. So far, I'm finding it an engaging read. If nothing else, it encourages intellectual curiosity: Taubes challenges readers to look askance at conventional wisdom and to question whether there's evidence to support what many of us have been taught about diet and nutrition. A healthy dose of skepticism is always a good thing. (It certainly helped color my reading of the New York Times' recent article on the "obesity-hunger paradox.")

Just like his controversial New York Times Magazine article, the talking heads are split on Taube's book. (Michael Pollan and Andrew Weil are fans; Jillian Michaels and Mehmet Oz are not.) And not all reviewers agree with Taube's conclusions. But regardless of where you land on this issue, there's certainly a lot of food for thought here.

After the jump: Video of Taube's 2007 lecture at U.C. Berkeley (in case you don't feel like reading his 468-page book, but want to get the gist of what he's saying).

Check It Out: Enter the Kettlebell

"The kettlebell delivers extreme all-around fitness. All-purpose strength. Staying power. Flexibility. Fat loss without the dishonor of aerobics. All accomplished in one to two hours of weekly training. All done with one compact and virtually indestructible tool that can be used anywhere." - Pavel Tsatsouline

I've been thinking about starting a kettlebell routine ever since I read this extensive blog post by my favorite P90X critic, and now that I'm more than halfway through my 90-day P90X/Insanity hybrid, I've decided to kick the tires some more. I picked up Pavel Tsatsouline's "Enter the Kettlebell!" and am slowly making my way through it. Tsatsouline's idiosyncratic grammar and machismo-drenched writing style makes for a fun read -- you can almost hear his Russian-inflected voice booming from the pages.

Here's what he sounds like (while delivering advice on hand care and mocking metrosexuals):



Although Tsatsouline's "I'm a man's man, and people who go to gyms are pussies" shtick gets a little old after awhile, I like what I'm reading so far. I don't know how (or even if) I'll end up incorporating Tsatsouline's moves into my workout routine, but I'm curious enough to want to get my hands on a kettlebell and give it a swing or two.

[UPDATE: More about Tsatsouline's kettlebell program here.]

Check It Out: The Primal Blueprint

Remember Mark Sisson, the guy responsible for all the P90X supplements? You know – this guy:

Sisson's not just a supplement designer. He's also the author of “The Primal Blueprint: Reprogram Your Genes for Effortless Weight Loss, Vibrant Health and Boundless Energy” and runs an informative health and nutrition website called “Mark’s Daily Apple.”

His book and blog focus primarily on the benefits of evolutionary fitness and nutrition – the concept that, from an evolutionary and biological standpoint, high-carb diets eaten around the world today are not suitable for optimal human nutrition. Rather, we should revert to a simpler, more “primal” approach to diet and exercise: Eat mostly animals and plants, lift heavy stuff and move around (frequently and slowly, with an occasional sprint) like our ancestors did. According to Sisson, low carb is the way to go; we’ve been poisoned by modern food – including not just processed snacks and fast food, but also grains, sugars and chemically-altered fats.

(For a more detailed review of “The Primal Blueprint” from another P90Xer, check out Jeff Pickett’s excellent fitness blog, Life Isn’t Over.)

I’ve come to really enjoy Sisson’s site, and I subscribe to a lot of what he's said about nutrition in “The Primal Blueprint.” (It’s also great that he’s a fellow barefoot running and Vibram FiveFingers enthusiast.) Especially in my first month of P90X, a super-low-carb diet was the catalyst for a significant change in my body composition. I’m a firm believer in eating whole, unprocessed foods whenever possible, and I’m perfectly happy eating salads (with some protein: meat, nuts, beans, etc.) for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

BUT (and this is a pretty big BUT):

The “Primal Eating Plan” is totally anti-grains, which poses a problem for me. As Sisson puts it in his “Definitive Guide to Grains”:

The bottom line is this: grains = carbs. Unnecessary at best, but flat out unhealthy at worst, they’re not the wholesome staples they’re made out to be. Talk about double taxation: Our bodies pay for what our trusty government subsidizes Big Agra for. The best – really the only way – to achieve a low carb, whole foods diet is to ditch the grains. (Your body will be better off without inflammation, the insulin roller coaster, not to mention the constant onslaught of creepy gluten and lectins.) A diet very low or entirely without grains (low-carb) has been shown to decrease risk for problems associated with diabetes, to lower blood pressure, alleviate heartburn symptoms, and shed abdominal fat. Finally, low carb diets have been associated with significant “reductions in a number of pro-inflammatory cytokines, chemokines, and adhesion molecules.”

One of the selling points of “The Primal Blueprint” is that it encourages you to simplify – to stop worrying about calorie counting or tightly-scripted exercise routines. But by effectively banning grains outright, Sisson actually makes it a lot harder to stick to the “Primal Eating Plan.” It hurts my head to think of the planning and forethought required to come up with a substitute for our pizza-loving kids, or the pain of having to scoop out the insides of a burrito to avoid eating a whole wheat tortilla.

I’m no expert, so I can’t speak to whether Sisson’s vehement arguments against grains are scientifically valid or not. But regardless, I don’t think that I can – or want to – eliminate grains altogether from my diet. It's just not realistic. I’ve already drastically limited my consumption of carbs over the past half-year; cutting added sugar almost entirely out of my diet and loading up on bananas and whole grains only after a hard morning workout. Grains help keep me from bonking when I push myself hard while working out. And besides, they fucking taste good.

[UPDATE: I eventually gave up grains. Really.]

One last note about Sisson, "The Primal Blueprint" and P90X:

“The Primal Blueprint” suggests that even those carbs that are ingested immediately after a workout should be avoided. But didn’t Mark Sisson create and help market the P90X Recovery Drink, which happens to be loaded with carbs?

Sisson’s response is a bit surprising – particularly because he now appears to be disavowing his own creation, and distancing himself from the claims he made in Beachbody's advertisements:

I did design the P90X post-workout shake. My main “business” is actually designing supplements, which I have done for several companies including my own. In the case of the P90X shake, I was contacted to design a product line to meet their particular demographic and price specs. At the time of design, the main challenge was to refill muscle glycogen immediately after a relatively longer and harder workout such that you could be ready to go again the very next day, so the main exercise premise deviated from PB [The Primal Blueprint]. Also, the diet being espoused by P90 staff dietitians was a higher carb diet, so I had to create something that would give the carb-burners a continuous source of muscle glycogen.

The prevailing technology at the time was to combine 80% carb and 20% protein, which I did using mainly fructose. I added antioxidants and creatine along with a few other recovery assists and made it the best tasting drink on the market. I appeared in their advertising at first as part of the deal, but I am no longer affiliated with the P90X program. Apparently, my interviews are still being used by P90 and there’s nothing I can do about that. Obviously, technology has changed in the years since that product was designed and I personally don’t follow a [post-workout] carb-loading strategy.

I'm no fan of Beachbody's P90X supplements, but that’s pretty different from what he was saying a few years ago:

Check It Out: Mindless Eating

In "Mindless Eating," food psychologist Brian Wansink discusses why many people don't realize how much they're eating, what they're eating, or even why they're eating. Along with thoughtful discussions of studies he's done as director of the Cornell University Food & Brand Lab, their results and real-world applications, Wansink sprinkles his book with nuggets of wisdom for those of us who clutch Costco-sized bags of chips as we hunch, zombie-like, in front of the television.


After pointing out that our environment significantly influences our propensity for overeating, one of Wansink's suggestions is to create "distraction-free eating scripts":

Rescript your diet danger zones. We all have various eating scripts for the five most common diet danger zones -- dinners, snacks, parties, restaurants, desks/dashboards. A common dinner script -- particularly for men -- involves eating second helpings of most foods until everyone at the table is finished or until the food is gone. If such a man wanted to rescript his dinner, he might try being the last one to start eating, pacing himself with his spouse, serving triple helpings of the healthy foods and single heapings of the meat and potatoes, or not including bread. Similarly, after-work snacking could be rescripted with a stick of gum rather than whatever is in the refrigerator.

Distract yourself before you snack. Distractions are good news and bad news. They are goo when they prevent us from starting to snack. they are bad when they prevent us from stopping. at home, you can make your snacking life less distracting and less alluring by eating in one room only, such as the dining room or kitchen.

Serve yourself before you start. If you can't distract yourself from a yummy snack, you can minimize the damage it does in a distracting situation (such as eating in front of the TV). To avoid "eating until it's over," dish yourself out a ration before you start. Eating straight from a box, bag, or serving bowl is the recipe for regret.

I've found the last suggestion above to be particularly helpful. I used to eat handfuls of nuts (they're healthy! I told myself) straight from the container while staring at the television at home or computer screen at work. Since I started on the P90X Nutrition Plan, however, I've been diligently counting out a snack-sized portion of almonds (15 nuts = 100 calories) rather than taking the free-for-all approach. And surprisingly, this tiny handful of almonds actually satisfies me -- at least until my next feeding.