Eating for your health

You are what you eat, simply put.

I've starting reading The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson and some of his major points deal with the amount of carbohydrates that Americans eat and the health issues that have come about from it.  Most Americans lead a fairly sedentary life, working 50+ hours a week (sorry the 9-5 is out of the question when work is brought home), eating fast food on a regular basis, and finding more excuses to stay inside instead of going out to get some fresh air.

So primal...what does this really mean in regards to paleo?  From my first amounts of reading there isn't a great deal of differences.  I almost like the idea of a primal diet over the "paleo" diet.  There are several different paleo diets out there (meaning there are lots of different tribal groups/foraging areas in the world), but the primal diet has been presented as the core of what my meals have become.

Also, the primal diet allows for dairy in moderation, as long as your body can handle it.  So even though I am  following a more paleo diet and most of the recipes will be considered paleo, I do enjoy my milk/chocolate milk after a hard work out.

Back to The Primal Blueprint...

I am concerned about diabetes and heart health.  Both parents have diabetes and one has high blood pressure and a few years back major heart surgery.  The heart health concerns will be a later post, but I wanted to really focus on the concerns about diabetes.  The more I read, the better I feel about deciding to change my diet habits.

Here are a few excerpts from the Diabetes Well Being website.  The biochemistry behind insulin and how your body uses it is pretty self explanatory and the long term effects of continued exposure to these toxic levels of sugar are just now being understood.  Our body processes carbohydrates into glucose, which is the energy our cells need to move and our body needs to grow.  This insulin makes the glucose a usable energy source.

Don't read this as sugar/carbohydrates are bad.  But the majority our the carbohydrates consumed are in the form of sugar (high fructose corn syrup) and processes grains.  Neither of these have a lot of nutritional value, but both are extremely effective in causing our body to go into overdrive to go back into homeostasis. The excess glucose not processed by the cellular respiration is stored as fat, which back in ancient times was a good thing.  A small fat store allowed for animals and people to fatten up to survive the winter months.

Fast forward to modern days there is a lack of exercise, which leads to the weight problems.  Combine the lack of exercise with an overworked pancreas.  If the pancreas is constantly working in overdrive to keep up with the insulin needs it is going to get worn out.  As the pancreas can't produce the proper amount of insulin the glucose gets stored as fat or passed through the urine.  Mark Sisson, points out that muscles are also prone to insulin resistance, which causes a constant trigger response the cells are starving.  This sensation caused by insulin not doing its job results in that sugar cravings, even if you just ate no more than a few hours ago.  This fact alone may be the leading reason for how type II diabetes is on the rise.