Time To Be a Better Role Model

As a parent, it is your responsibility to be a role model for your children.  Feed yourself well and feed your kids well.  Make sure your kids see you being active or they at least they know you are being active.  Your kids look up to you as an example of what they want to be.  It is funny to watch them imitate you as they get older.  Don't rely on others to steer your children in the right direction.  Especially don't let them read the book, Maggie Goes On a Diet.  Here is an interview of the author of this controversial children's book.




It is unfortunate but the author does not appear to be much of a role model himself.  I don't know, maybe he is already 100 pounds down in his weight loss journey.  How can he provide advice when it seems he has yet to find the solution?


It is quite sad but this book will probably sell because it is easier to provide a fictitious role model rather than be a real live model of health for kids.


CP

Get Yourself Together

It's coming people and I warned you.  Organizations cannot afford to support the unhealthy lifestyles of their employees.  So if you haven't done it already you better shape up or it's gonna cost you.  Here is another example of this trend from the City of Chicago:

“We cannot afford the standard we’re on. And we can’t afford to do pilots anymore. ... Six to 8 percent of the city’s employees drive almost two-thirds of the health care costs around five chronic illnesses that are all manageable. ... We are going to be the first city to ... implement a citywide wellness plan for our employees because health care costs are being driven [up] 10 ten percent a year and we’re not seeing revenue growing that way.”

If it hasn't already happened to you it will.  Businesses will increasingly see this as an acceptable opportunity for them to reduce costs.  On the other hand, you may be passed over in the hiring process if you are deemed a health insurance cost risk.  Get it together people because your health is going to start to become your responsibility again.


CP

How Far Has Paleo Come?

I have been following the paleo/primal/stoneage/evolutionary/caveman/traditional/ancestral nutrition scene for almost 5 years now.  It has definitely grown.  But how big is it?  Is it mainstream?  If you surveyed 100 people off the street, how many would know what the paleo diet is?  Most everyone knows what the Atkins diet is.  Could they explain the difference between that and paleo?  Someone near a busy sidewalk, please do that survey.

How Much Bigger Will It Get?

The magic Google fairies send me an email whenever a new paleo article shows up on the World Wide Web.  Within the last 6 months or so, I have seen a big uptick in media articles done on the paleo diet.  I would say about half of the writers are open minded enough to realize the opposite of conventional wisdom may be what people need to be healthy.    I suspect the uptick in attention is because of a few successful paleo book releases recently and some celebrities espousing the merits of paleo.  Oh yeah, there was also a US News review of paleo that got a lot of attention.  Either way, the little snowball I saw as just a few flakes of snow 5 years ago is rolling faster and getting bigger everyday.  But I will ask again, how big is it?


Today begins the first ever Ancestral Health Symposium.  It is basically a gathering of Who's Who in the paleo world.  It would have been pretty cool to get together with this group of pioneers I have observed and gotten to know only through a computer screen.  Being the inaugural event, space was limited.  I hope this was just a dry run for future events that will be much bigger and draw a wider audience.  This first event is basically preaching to the choir.


Being that it is relatively small, it still got a lot of talk in the paleo sphere of influence.  What I am curious about is whether this event will get any media attention?  Sure it is not big but it is revolutionary.  So many people getting together to espouse a lot of ideas so counter to the mainstream.  Avoiding "healthy" whole grains, eating fat, standing up at work, not wearing shoes, not running miles on a treadmill, buying food direct from farmers, spending time in the sun, and not relying on medications.  All this seems so whacky to many that it is hard for them to believe that more than one person would live this way.  The media should be all over this freak show, right?  


Only time will tell.  I am curious to see what comes of this conference.  Will these experts toil in anonymity or will the rest of the world take notice and take them seriously?


CP

"What Do You Have to Lose?"

The author from this video is cardiologist Dr. William Davis, MD and owner of theheartscanblog.com .  I have been following his blog for years.  He has great patient outcomes with mostly over the counter supplements and diet change.  His diet recommendations are very much paleo.  Obviously he feels today's wheat is not good for us but in fact it's very bad.  Another reason I like him is he did his residency right up the road from me in Cleveland, OH.  Here is another interview of him regarding wheat. 


More on the topic of wheat.  Some participants of possibly the most grueling endurance event ever, The Tour de France, avoided wheat during the race.  They are Team Garmin and while drastically reducing their intake of bread and pasta, they won the team classification in the 2,132 mile event.  You mean it's possible to do an endurance event without relying on bread and pasta???  Blasphemy I say.  Is it a coincidence that the most successful athlete in 2011 also drastically reduced wheat in his diet?  Most intelligent people would agree when many start having the same results, it stops being a coincidence.


CP