I’m still in the process of developing my new website, and I thought I would get some nice outdoor photos taken for the project. For background, my husband and I have made a habit of never taking professional photos. We feel just fine with all the candids in our lives, though we made an exception for our wedding. No engagement poses, no holiday card sittings, no weird Olan Mills business. But I had this website coming up, I needed some good head shots for promotional purposes, and I had a photographer friend who owed me a small favor that I was happy to exploit.

This is going to sound funny, but folks, I had no idea I looked like this:

I’m being serious. Like, not pulling your leg at all. I knew Paleo had done wonders for me, I knew that most of the weight I had packed on over the years had melted off, I knew I was stronger from MovNat-style movements and play in the outdoors. But goddamn. Some things just can’t be known without a different perspective.

Because I still have days where I feel bloated and not as svelte as I’d like. I inherited what I affectionately call “Dumpy Butt” from my mom’s side. If I gain weight, my ass starts sliding down the back of my thighs and up into my muffin top until there is one wide, flat posterior. JLo I am not. But here’s the thing.

I don’t count calories. I don’t worry about carbs. I workout less now than ever before in my adult life, usually one or two play sessions a week plus whatever general activity I happen to do, like walking or hiking. My plan is to start going to CrossFit once a week during the winter, but when these photos were taken, I had only been once so far. I eat all the bacon, red meat, butter, eggs, fruit, veggies, and nuts I want. I occasionally eat dairy. When we eat out, I will eat white potatoes, rice, and corn. I love going out for ice cream every now and again. I occasionally make substitution food items like muffins and pancakes. I follow the rules very well, but I also break them when I feel like it. I’m nearly two years into this whole Paleo life and it obviously agrees with me.

Now, there’s a lot of backlash against Paleo right now. Of course we’re hearing it from both the vegetarian/vegan angle and the proponents of the SAD, but it might surprise you that there’s some noise coming from within Paleo as well. I’m not going to go into all of the nitty-gritty of those arguments, but I will use the loudest one to illustrate some points.

Carbs.

*GASP!* I said the C word. [No, not THAT one! I'll leave that to Richard Nikoley.]

After reading about MovNat in Outside Magazine, which mentioned the Paleo diet which set me on this big adventure in the first place, my other introduction to all of this was Gary Taubes’s Why We Get Fat. I make no apologies for this, though some in Paleo like to use it against me. At the very least, it made me understand that what I was eating didn’t agree with me and that exercise wouldn’t save me, all important things to realize. Where I differ with many is that nothing Gary said made me think that natural sources of carbs were bad: sweet potatoes, plantains, fruit, starchy roots. Sure, our culture is overly dependent on white potatoes—especially the rectangular fried-in-rancid-vegetable-oils ones—but for someone who’s metabolically normal, they shouldn’t present a problem, as long as they’re not displacing more nutrient-dense choices. Reading WWGF made me realize that man-made refined foods weren’t doing any of us any favors, and for me, that’s what I think of when I hear the word “carbs.” Natural sources fall under the banner of “real food” for me, so I don’t think of them as dirty-word carbs, I think of them as real-food carbs—totally distinct categories in my mind.

This last year in Paleo brought us Paul Jaminet‘s Safe Starches idea, which then produced numerous debates about whether such a thing exists. There is a camp that thinks if you dare eat a potato or banana, you will keel over and die—maybe not now, but you can’t possibly live a long, optimal life. I wasn’t sure what the answers on that front were, but I know I feel better and my hair is thicker when I eat some real-food carbs.

Then I saw Chris Masterjohn‘s presentation at AHS12, and something clicked for me. I’ll try to remember to link to it when the video is available, because I think it’s important information for all of us interested in this topic. I’m vastly simplifying here, but he showed how humans have adapted to eat starch since we diverged from chimpanzees in our evolutionary line. Some of us have a little ability to digest starch, and some have more ability.

Bingo.

A lot of the internal conflict within Paleo comes from some serious misunderstandings. There are many different reasons and motivations to be Paleo. For me it was about losing weight and feeling better. For others it might be for physical aesthetics, athletic performance, solving a health crisis, autoimmune issues, being a science geek, or any combo of these. The idea that one true Paleo diet exists is wrong. This is a trap that we humans fall into time and time again, and it’s time for us to utilize our neocortex to override our limbic brain on this issue. When we make a decision for our lives, we have to be convinced of its rightness in order to follow through, but we have to learn to accept the subjective nature of human experience and make room for others to figure things out for themselves. Just because I make the occasional almond flour muffins for my family no more makes me a neo-food addict than it makes you an orthorexic for eating nothing but meat and kale.

By posting these photos of myself, I’m not saying that if you follow my plan you’ll get my results. The human body is so much more complicated than that, and it’s time we respect that and quit trying to reduce the mysterious beauty of it to a rote formula. I have nothing to sell you, but I do have a story to share.

I did not look like this two years ago. I was tired, pudgy, uncomfortable in clothes. I couldn’t do a pull-up. I was developing a lovely bunion from all the crappy shoes I was wearing. I farted so badly that my husband dreamed of inventing a vacuum-underwear system I could wear at night. I had anxiety that seemed to be getting worse with each passing year.

It’s all gone and I’m tired of feeling guilty about Paleo working for me. Just as I think it’s important to hear from people frustrated by their lack of success in Paleo, it’s also important to hear that it’s a viable and doable option. It’s so crazy, it just might work! And if it doesn’t, then by all means, keep searching because your health and well-being are worth it.

Feeling lazy, I figured we could just run by the little park on the way home to run around in the grass, as there’s not much else to do there. I don’t know for sure, but my hunch is that this park used to be private property back in the day, because there are several old apple and pear trees in the park. So I unbuckle her from the carseat, and her first question is, “Where duckpond go?”

Busted. The duckpond is at another park, Lithia Park, the large gem nestled between the hills downtown. I panicked, not knowing what to say. But then, as we started walking through the grass, I saw some lovely little green apples hanging in the branches.

It seemed a little early to me for apples, seeing as how we’re still in full peach throttle here, but I grabbed a low-hanging one and bit. And lucky me, it was good! Edie’s curiosity was piqued—she had to try one.

We wandered through the park barefoot, taste-testing each tree as we went by, discovering which were ready and which weren’t yet. My guess is that the city doesn’t want to encourage too much aggressive harvesting, so they keep the park pretty trim. All the really big, good apples are well out of reach. So mama had to go up into the branches while little one sat in the grass and ate foraged ones that had fallen. She giggled at me and told me, “Careful, Mommy!” But while climbing trees is easy and fun for me, when you’re actually going for fruit, it’s much more difficult.

The good stuff is high and far out in the foliage, meaning it’s nearly impossible to get to it from the strong inner branches. This is why humans invented ladders. Duh. But I challenged myself using leverage, strong hand grips, and all four limbs to reach places that were hard to reach. I still couldn’t reach the best stuff, but I came down with two pocketfuls of delicious green apples. I’m not sure what types of apples these are, but they are small, sweet-tart, and surprisingly fibrous. In other words, we’re not in Safeway’s produce aisle anymore.

We laid in the grass. We chased each other. She kept pointing out all the deer poop, no longer in little pellets from their usual dry, summer feed, but almost cow-like with all the extra liquid the apples provide. I folded up the bottom of my shirt to make a hammock of sorts to carry the extra apples home for Daddy to enjoy.

The next day, we went to Lithia Park to play by the duckpond. Edie said, “Where apples go?”

In my halfway postI talked about some of my challenges and how difficult the first few days were. I’m happy to say that for the most part, the second half was fairly smooth sailing. But there were a few times that I wondered just how much longer 30 days could last. There were also a few times where I thought that I had not picked the best time to do this challenge. But guess what? There’s never a good time. There will always be stressful moments at work, friends visiting, special occasions, and any other multitude of excuses to not take it on. So just start.

My success over that month is directly related to the strong support network I have. There were numerous frantic text messages to Kelli at various times of weakness. And friends who are happy to change a restaurant destination so we can dine somewhere more paleo friendly. My CrossFit buddiessupplied me with recipes, stories and motivation.  Most of all, my super-supportive husband Kent. He provided constant encouragement and wasn’t afraid to call me out on my bs when I was trying to bend the rules just a little bit more. It is amazing the difference it makes when you have great people in your corner.

A few weeks ago I wrote about my kryptonite and I made the promise to go 30 days at 100% primal. Well, I’ve reached the halfway point and I thought I’d drop by to give you all a little update. I started my 30 day paleo challenge on Monday, August 8th after a Wyoming wedding weekend where I might have had a bit too much fun. I came home feeling like complete crap and happily undertook this challenge. It helped that Kelli agreed to do this with me so I had someone to call/text/tweet/telegram when things got rough.

I’m not calling this a Whole 30 challenge because I bent the rules a little. My 30 day challenge is basically a Whole 30 light. I set two caveats: red wine in moderation is allowed and butter can be used in very small portions. So far? Things have been going quite well. And I’ve only used two pats of butter.

I won’t lie – the first few days were not easy. I was trying not to drink coffee because I normally add whole milk and a small amount of honey. I hadn’t realized just how much sugar I had let creep back into my diet and boy, could I feel the sugar and the caffeine withdrawal. By day four those barriers seemed to melt away and I was in a good flow.

I’ve been known to be a kick-ass baker in my pre-primal days and I regularly said that I always need a little something sweet after a meal. A small piece of dark chocolate. Or three scoops of ice cream. You know, just a little something sweet. I had bought a bunch of berries in preparation of my 30 day challenge to replace the need for chocolate and ice cream. And then I read this. Yeah, it slapped me upside the head. Granted berries are what I should be reaching for when I want something sweet but by reaching for them every time an urge hit, I wasn’t changing my behavior.

I needed to change my habit.

Those berries have barely been touched. In the past two weeks I have had one small bowl of blueberries and strawberries and one apple with almond butter. And both times I’ve had the fruit I was amazed at how sweet it was. A little bit went a long way. I’m working hard on this and hope that at the end of the 30 days I’m able to resist the urge to have something sweet after every meal.

Here are a few other musings on my midway point:

• Coconut milk tastes really great in coffee. I find good black coffee tasty but often times it’s a bit too acidic for me. A little bit of coconut milk helps with this.
• I finally forced myself to make over easy eggs. It’s my favorite way to eat eggs but I’ve always been intimidated by the flip. Copious amounts of bacon grease helps with this.
• I don’t really miss dairy. Except goat cheese. I dream of goat cheese.
• I miss different textures. Meat and vegetables doesn’t give you much variety in texture. I know once my 30 days are up, I’ll be whipping up some primal banana bread.
• The scale taunts me every morning. I’m not stepping on it until the 30 days is up but jeesh, every morning I walk into the bathroom and there it is just daring me to step on it. I’ve never been a scale obsessed person but right now I want to keep checking to see if I’ve lost any weight (pretty sure I have). This will just have to wait until September 7th. Not like I’m counting…

There are still some daily battles and being a social butterfly who likes to go out wtih friends can make this even more challenging. But I know that I’m feeling great right now and I’m determined to see this through the full 30 days. Should we take bets to see if I’ve smashed the scale to bits before then?

Is there one thing you feel powerless against? I’ll be honest, for me it’s ice cream. Specifically high quality vanilla bean ice cream. I don’t really need any toppings, but I won’t scoff at adding fresh berries or some dark chocolate chunks. I love the stuff and in the middle of a hot summer, can’t seem to get enough. I try to rationalize my love affair with ice cream. It’s hot, a scoop will taste great. It’s only plain vanilla icecream – not loaded with “junk”. C’mon, it’s organic!

But I know it’s loaded with sugar. And me and sugar have a long, sordid history. I grew up in a house where leftover birthday cake and a bowl of Count Chocula was considered a decent breakfast. There was a candy dish on anything that stood still. Sugar was added to pasta sauce (to reduce the acidity, don’t ya know). In high school, I worked at an Italian bakery. I was a 16 year old soccer player, I could eat whatever I wanted! Cream puffs, napoleons, cookies, I ate it all. Somewhere in my early 20′s I knew I needed to cut back but it wasn’t until I went primal that I cut it out completely.

And it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. For my first month of going primal I didn’t touch honey or sugar except for a few small bites of 85% dark chocolate. I felt great but still had to be aware of my tendency to reach for something sweet after a meal even when I didn’t really want it.

Then summer hit. And my husband and I would go grab a scoop of ice cream. And then there was ice cream in the house (how did it get there?!). And then I was putting honey in my coffee. Followed by making primal baked goods that had a bunch of honey in them. And the other day I looked around and realized, I’ve been eating quite a bit of sugar again.

So it seems that now is a good a time as any to get back on the wagon. I’m focusing on the next 30 days. Since I haven’t been following the 80/20 rule very well, I think it’s time to set a goal. 30 days of 100% primal. I can do this. Especially since I convinced a friend to make the commitment with me so we can keep each other in check.

Do you have any foods that you consider kryptonite? Ones that you can’teven be around because you feel so incredibly powerless against them. How do you handle these challenges? I’d love to hear any tips you have for getting back on the wagon or how you stay on the primal wagon.

1. The Weight Just Won’t Come Off.  This was me. I graduated high school at 125 eating-like-crap-and-not-exercising pounds. I remember when I first hit 130 pounds at 21. That stabilized for a while, but soon it took a lot of exercise to maintain it. Then it crept up to 131. Then 132. Then 133. All this despite 4-5 days a week of intense cardio and lots of other activities. I was hovering around 135 before I got pregnant. Then, more than a year after having my daughter, the scale would not budge from 135. Despite eating “healthier” and running longer and harder than ever before. Does this sound familiar? What if the weight could come off effortlessly? What if there was no suffering or starving involved? What if you could have all that and bacon too? Simply put: it just shouldn’t be so hard. It never was until very recently in human history.
2. You Feel Like Garbage. There wasn’t a 3pm I met that couldn’t be improved by a nap. I would sometimes get dizzy from how tired I felt. Many turn to caffeine as a crutch (I still do in the mornings. Hey! I have a toddler!). Maybe you’re bloated and gassy, or have other intestinal concerns. Or maybe it’s worse: high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis. Many on Paleo experience better energy, better sleep, better libido, and a renewed zest for life. So while I think it behooves us all to keep our expectations in check, there are amazing stories of serious health concerns being reversed or eased.
3. You’re Hungry All the Time. Four words for you: Stabilize your blood sugar. Almost everyone in America (and more globally all the time) are riding an insulin roller coaster, until they can’t anymore because their bodies have given out. We have to shift our thinking away from diabetes being a destination and more of a journey. We’re all on the spectrum somewhere. So do you get brain-dead, cranky, shaky, and have persistent food thoughts that can only be cured with a granola bar? You know who else experience those problems? Drug addicts. Cut the cycle. It’s an amazing liberation to go most of a day feeling like you don’t need to eat.
4. You’re Ready to Eat Healthier. I swear, I’ve never eaten so much cabbage in my entire life. When your plate is half meat and half veggies, you’re offering yourself the best that Nature can offer with none of the filler. There is no nutritional advantage to eating oatmeal, pasta, bread, or rice. You won’t miss it and you don’t need it. What you do need is every available square inch of stomach space to cram in high-quality, nutritionally dense real foods. Your body will thank you.

What do you hear from others that you think Paleo can help with or cure? Do you mention it or stay quiet?

How could these cute, fluffy, tasty creatures possibly be to blame?

I’m glad Melissa McEwan said it (here), ’cause I’ve been thinking the same thing.

After reading The End of Overeating by David Kessler, McEwan couldn’t help but wonder, “When I see a study that shows meat causes weight gain, I kind of want to know ‘what meat?’.” Apparently, the book blames meat for the epidemic of overeating. Oh really?

The minute we went Primal in my house, we noticed how it was physically impossible to overeat meat. We would have a honking organic, grass-fed ribeye in front of us, perhaps accompanied by some asparagus (recipe here!), and we would stop at a certain point, completely uninterested in going any further. Not out of a physical, stomach-based signal. Not that well-known Thanksgiving, I’m-about-to-explode kinda feeling. But something else that told us we’d eaten what we needed.

And the funny thing about that meal is that if we’d eaten the exact same thing pre-Primal, it would’ve been accompanied by bread or pasta or rice, and probably some sort of dessert. And we would have felt like ‘sploding. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve felt that way since going Primal, and each time involved going off-plan (“cheating”).

And that’s the crux. Those processed carbohydrates just interfere with our body’s ability to signal correctly. Mark Sisson, he of the Daily Apple, has several pieces about satiety: here, here, and here. Basically, overeating is a symptom of metabolic derangement, and almost all modern humans are suffering from it.

You mean people eat this and don't lose weight?

Not to mention, as McEwan does, that the meat hiding in a McDonald’s bun is shot full of weird non-meat stuff like vegetable oils, soybean byproducts, and probably some sort of sugar. So. Show me the study that can absolutely tease out the fact that pure meat causes weight gain. I remember seeing something called The Pizza Paradox, which is the alleged caveat to a high-fat diet facilitating weight loss. As in, some people don’t lose weight on a high-fat diet because they eat pizza and somehow still gain weight. Oy. Seriously folks? Let’s think about this. IT’S A HUGE CRACKER WITH CRAPPY CHEESE, SUGAR-LADEN TOMATO SAUCE, AND CORN-FED, INDUSTRIALIZED FEEDLOT PROCESSED MEAT ON TOP. The fat in pizza isn’t even on the same planet as the fat in my pastured, organic buffalo burger.

Every time I see a new study that blames meat, I wonder, like McEwan, what population they’re talking about and what foods we’re really dealing with. Just because someone eats meat doesn’t mean they aren’t eating other things that could be doing the damage. But no one will blame the bun their fast food burger comes on. And the thing is, we can absolutely compare a modern American diet with a traditional one. We’ve seen the changes in the Inuit population in real time since the 1960s. They were clearly healthier on a meat and fat diet than they are now on KFC and chips. But you can’t just compare a meat-eating American’s diet with a vegetarian American’s diet without asking more questions: What kind of meat? From where? How often are they eating out? What oils do they cook with? How much sugar is in their diet?

When will these researchers learn? When will they recommit to real, evidence-based science rather than the easy target?

This'll get me through the 3pm slump.

In addition, hunger is individually experienced. I noticed pre-Primal, anecdotally, how it was always women talking about how they had to snack or die. How they would bring things like bananas and crackers to work to get through the day. And their guy partner sitting next to them would roll their eyes, as if to say, “You don’t know the troubles I’ve seen.” These men were well-versed in getting their gal a granola bar in the event of an emergency, lest they lose their head. The only way to get off this roller coaster is to regulate blood sugar and nip metabolic derangement in the bud. Otherwise, it’s basically feeding an addiction, one sugary, Cherry Jubilee Parfait yogurt cup at a time.

Something else I’ve noticed is that folks experiencing intestinal troubles will very quickly jump to blame the meat. I was one of them, way back when. I remember the first time we had a meal of a huge steak and a side veg after going Primal, and I worried. I waited. I was sure I was going to be spending some intimate, extended time with our toilet. And it never happened. It only happens now going off-plan.

Grains are so seemingly innocent, how could they possibly be to blame? There’s no fat and very few calories (Very little of anything of value, but I digress…). When a friend of mine went to the doctor in hopes of identifying the source of her intestinal distress, she was put through the battery of tests and finally told that she “probably” had IBS and she should avoid things like wine and dairy. Grains and sugar were nowhere on the list. And guess what? She’s been feeling great since going Primal. Hmm…I should start charging $150/hour for this…

I know there are some out there who actually gain weight eating Paleo/Primal, and I wish I knew the solution to that. So I don’t think we can entirely rule out the possibility that someone could gain weight on a diet of meat. But for the vast majority of us, I’m guessing the opposite has been true. Not only do we eat meat, but we’ve eliminated all the rest of the garbage too.

What about you? Have you been surprised, pleasantly or not, by your reaction to meat? How are your hunger cues on Paleo/Primal?

This stove is immaculate compared to mine.

1. One Heckuva Dirty Kitchen. The stove top is a constant disaster. Bacon grease, egg splatters, recongealed butter, salt crystals and pepper granules, a dehydrated onion piece that I’ll have to remove with a sandblaster. The iron grates on the burner are too gross to touch with my bare hands, they are just caked in grease. Because I’m cooking almost every meal every day, the stove takes a lot of abuse and it’s nearly impossible to keep up with the mess.
2. Teeth Excavating. Let’s be honest—eating this way leaves a lot of stuff stuck between the teeth. Flossing before bed is a fascinating retrospective on what I’ve eaten that day. Toothpicks are helpful in this regard. I highly recommend Desert Essence’s tea tree oil toothpicks, I’ve taken to carrying them in my purse for dental hygiene on the run. Bonus breath freshening!
3. Clothes Don’t Fit. There’s a phase when looser clothing is flattering and then there’s hobo-chic, when you’re holding your pants up with a random rope tied around your waist. Oh darn. Guess I have to go shopping. If you managed to keep your “skinny” clothes around, go dig ‘em out! It was such a thrill when I put on summer clothes and they were loose, whereas last year, I was afraid I’d have to give them away for being too tight.
4. 

   Oh great! Who invited the insulin surge?!

   The Social Thing. This is truly the only serious one in this list and it can be a bummer. I find that things go better when I’m in control of the entertaining, because no one even notices the food adheres to any particular philosophy other than delicious. Many people struggle with this problem with friends and family, and it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for me either. I try to be as easygoing as possible when I’m at the mercy of someone else’s hospitality, and fer petessakes!, don’t say a word about how their birthday cake is going to give everyone cancer. Or whatever. Just smile, be gracious, and either eat what you’re comfortable with or totally blow it and chalk it up to your 20% off-plan allowance. Hopefully, you have a Paleo/Primal partner in crime with whom you can gossip and gripe about it later.

What drawbacks, if any, have you experienced?

I’ve been thinking a lot about you. Yes, you. All of you.

But let me start at the beginning. If you’re anything like me, you’re here because something just wasn’t quite right. You couldn’t put your finger on it. Maybe you just weren’t feeling very good after that pizza binge. Maybe the weight just wasn’t coming off like it used to, even when you work out harder and longer. I have one friend who noticed she didn’t lose any weight after training for and running a marathon. Another friend noticed the same thing after a bike ride from New York to Montana. Maybe all the traditional excuses—aging, being lazy, indulging too much—don’t apply. For my part, I thought there had to be a better way.

I began my own journey in January, and within a few months, I’d lost 13 pounds and been fully restored to what feels like a more natural version of myself. My husband’s results have been the same, and we feel great. If Gary Taubes is to be believed, this was supposed to work for everyone.

So of course, like any new convert, I screamed this WOE from the rooftops. Hell, I even started a blog all about it. A few friends, both near and far, were interested and decided to take the plunge.

And then…we have to invoke the “individual results may vary” axiom. A few haven’t seen the dramatic weight loss that I and many others have. Needless to say, I feel responsible for this fact and don’t know what the answers are.

I can’t imagine what that must feel like. But I do remember how I felt occasionally when the scale stalled during my own weight loss process. It gets addictive. I’ve never been one interested in numbers on scales, mostly due to the luxurious fact that for most of my life, my weight wasn’t an issue. But suddenly, I was on the scale every morning. After going to the bathroom. And only in my lightweight pajamas. No shoes or heavy clothes allowed. At first, I lost about 3 pounds of water weight. Then nothing for two weeks, during which time I was convinced no more weight was coming off. Then one morning, another 3 pounds were gone, never to be seen again. Then…nothing for a few more weeks and then another chunk of 2 pounds would disappear. Not the linear progression I expected at all. And it would send my brain into overdrive trying to figure it all out. And just typing this now makes me realize what a silly, silly human I am.

Which is all to say that you’re in the right place. I know it’s hard not to see that scale budge. But I’m going to try to convince you that there are other fantastic reasons to eat real food:

1. Health. I could go on and on here, but I’ll try to abridge. Sugar mucks up your internal environment, messes with your immune system functioning properly, and feeds cancer tumors. Grains, and gluten-containing ones in particular, are gut irritants that contribute to a cascade of other ailments, which may include neurobiological ones. Simple, easy carbs interfere with your body’s ability to tap into fat stores. You have to train your body to get in there and run off the fuel it was meant to burn. Show that body who’s boss!
2. Taking Control of Your Destiny. Allow me to be frank with you. The USDA doesn’t care about you. Nabisco doesn’t care about you. The piles of cottonseeds—agricultural waste—that get turned into oil for processed foods don’t care about you. The friends and family who care about you but still think you’re crazy, and may even try to derail you, are wrong. They’ll say, “You don’t need to lose weight. You look great,” “You need carbs for energy,” “But Grandma made this pie just for you,” etc. Just smile and nod and take it as a sign that they love you, and that even though their words seem against you, their intention is actually with you. They want you to be healthy, and you’re working on it.
3. What’s the Alternative? I’ll tell you. Either you return to the embrace of CW and the SAD, in which case you continue on the way you were going, or you try something else. Weight Watchers? Calorie restriction? Dukan diet? Blood type diet? Chronic cardio? In a word—ugh. Down that path lies suffering, uncontrollable hunger pangs, and a return to the foods that are causing so much trouble in our culture and beyond. Just eat real food. There’s no way to go wrong with real food. I don’t even care how you go about eating real food, just eat real food. You don’t have to call yourself Paleo or Primal or Archevore or raw vegan or whatever. Just eat real food. And if you’re ever tempted to return to the dominant dietary paradigm, I urge you to read or re-read Gary Taubes’s Good Calories, Bad Calories or Why We Get Fat. Those books set me straight every time.
4. It’s Your Right and Privilege as a Human. When people said to me, “You don’t need to lose weight,” all I heard was, “You don’t deserve what you’re looking for.” I know they meant well, but it still stung. So I’ve pledged never to say this to anyone else. We all deserve happiness and well-being. No, we don’t all deserve to be on American Idol, I’m not talking about bizarre pipe dreams here. I’m talking about looking in the mirror and recognizing the person there. About looking as good as you feel. About being able to take care of yourself in a deep and authentic way. And to do so, you have to be willing to say Eff You! to all the aforementioned noise in #2. I support you in that endeavor. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need some encouragement. In addition, how luxurious is it that we have lives such that we get to do this? That we don’t have bombs destroying our communities, food shortage concerns, the inability to find clean water? Honor that by showing up for yourself every day.

If you’re still having trouble with those pesky numbers that reflect how much gravitational force Earth is exerting on you, I recommend trying a Whole30. Commit for 30 days. Go whole hog (pun intended). See here for more info. This will help you clear out the cobwebs and expose any dietary potholes you may be falling into. And one of the rules? You’re not allowed to step on the scale for the entire 30 days.

If that doesn’t do the trick, make a list of all the other benefits you’ve seen so far. Is your energy up? How about that libido? Clearer skin? Clothes fitting better? Or are you just enjoying driving everyone crazy with your fussy diet? Whatever it is, it’s valid and a sign that you’re on the right track.

On top of it all, if you can, relax. Think back to our hunter-gatherer forebears. They didn’t gripe about this stuff. There was no such thing as a “diet”. There were no options, just survival. Wolves don’t ask themselves whether they should be hunting, killing, and eating the poor little gopher or whether the gopher’s Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio is out of whack. It’s time to get back to giving our bodies what it recognizes: real food. Keep on keeping on!

Love, Karen

In the same way that we evolved with certain foods, it appears that because we evolved outdoors, our eyes are more suited to that environment:

Our genes were originally selected to succeed in a very different world from the one we live in today. Humans’ brains and eyes originated long ago, when we spent most of our waking hours in the sun. The process of development takes advantage of such reliable features of the environment, which then may become necessary for normal growth.

Most of the article focuses on making sure children spend plenty of time outdoors:

Researchers suspect that bright outdoor light helps children’s developing eyes maintain the correct distance between the lens and the retina — which keeps vision in focus. Dim indoor lighting doesn’t seem to provide the same kind of feedback. As a result, when children spend too many hours inside, their eyes fail to grow correctly and the distance between the lens and retina becomes too long, causing far-away objects to look blurry.

But what they don’t say is whether heading outside is helpful in reversing nearsightedness in adults, or whether the exposure as a child leads to any long term protection. In my case, I had amazingly good vision until I turned 21. Since then, I’ve had mild nearsightedness that seems to be getting a tiny bit worse with each passing year. I barely passed my eye exam the last time I was at the DMV.

Whatever the case, more time spent outdoors is never a bad thing. Twist my arm!