If you’ve missed the previous posts, I’m writing on the core concepts of the Primal Blueprint, a dietary, exercise and lifestyle plan to help maintain optimum health. PB was conceived by Mark Sisson, an ex-super triathlete who got burned out by following the traditional dietary and exercise routines most people follow: intense cardio workouts, carbohydrate-rich diet, “carbo-loading” before a sporting event to boost glucose stores, sugary drinks for hydration, and so forth. PB dismantles these “pillars of fitness” using scientific logic based on evolutionary biology. In a nutshell, thousands of generations of human lineage produced the genetic code we all carry today. And those genetic codes still assume many of the environmental factors that existed during early man’s time: hunter gatherer diets, foraging, energy preservation, and periods of starvation. When we do things to our bodies (diet, exercise habits) that are not in line with these genetic codes, it adds stress to our system and eventually, chronic degenerative changes.
It’s common knowledge that, as far as the U.S. goes, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and gastrointestinal disease are still a big problem in the population. Drugs have not been able to stem the rates of these debilitating diseases. It begs the question, “what can be the cause of this?” After all, the U.S. is a wealthy country with excellent medical facilities. Could human behavior be driving this terrible morbidity rate? Are people getting the wrong message when it comes to diet and exercise? I think so.
Let’s talk about cardio workouts. Conventional Wisdom says you should do a minimum of 30 minutes, three times per week (more is better) of sustained efforts in medium to difficult intensity zones.
The Primal Blueprint says frequent medium to difficult sustained cardio efforts (running, stairmaster, aerobics classes, spinning, etc.) = overstress, fatigue, burnout, injury, accelerated aging, and increased disease risk. It is ineffective for weight loss, as calories burned through this Chronic Cardio method simply increase appetite, particularly for sugar. PB says to slow down for better health and peak performance!
Basically, PB advises against those long endurance type cardio exercises, like five and ten mile runs, 60 minute aerobic classes, and similar long, sustained repetitive exertion exercises. Our genetic code is not designed for this. You wind up generating a lot of free radicals that overwhelm your body’s anti-oxidant defenses, and break down your body.
Next, I’ll discuss the Primal Blueprint position on weight loss. Stay tuned.
Dr. Perez
San Francisco Chiropractic
