Women ask “How does the real food/primal/paleo/LCHF/Cereal Killing way affect women?”
Mark Sisson, author of Primal Blueprint & creator of The Primal Expert Course, gave the best answer in person last night. I found myself wanting to clap, hearing a man speak sense about female health, eating and our bodies. Unfortunately there is no exact recipe for all. As Mark’s “hero”, Professor Tim Noakes, says in Cereal Killers Movie: “The reality is, we are all on our own.” This is an individual journey. My guiding practice is: take out the noise - processed foods - and allow your body to feel, hear and listen to itself! It has been awe inspiring to meet and hear thought leaders in this field state the simple same. Ladies, it goes kinda like this…
You know this way of eating is working for you when you are operating at your optimum/ideal body state, when you lose what you had come to know and accept as your body’s idiosyncrasies - IBS, arthritis, sinusitis, migraines, fatigue, hangry (angry hunger) etc! This might mean you don’t look exactly like a cover girl (THAT is genetics!) but as soon as you FEEL free of ailments and good from your fuel, you are most certainly at YOUR individual, ideal body weight. This very generally takes anything from 1 - 6 months.
Weight loss is a positive side effect from eating real food…but the intention here is HEALTH first. A healthy woman’s body is not necessarily the skinny body we have been fed by the media. Mark actually referred to bodies that are extremely lean and ripped being medically closer to death than a body with a bit more flesh. Hallelujah to the truth!
Eliminating processed, high sugar foods and embracing fat, protein and leafy vegetables resets your body to function and fuel naturally. Fuelling with real food leads to a physical homeostasis which facilitates a change in one’s psychological connections to eating, food and hunger. You start to experience what Tim Noakes refers to as “real hunger”, which typically occurs every 8 - 10 hours.
I LOVE food and reallllly enjoy the sensation of eating, when I’m hungry. I ate well yesterday (my friend Michelle made her famous Meatballs with almond flour in a tomato sauce - so I went for it!). This morning I had coffee with cream upon waking, did some admin, 1.5hr Yoga class and only felt/listened to the desire for food at about 2pm ... and throughout the day it was continually minimal. Now THAT is being fat fuelled and LISTENING to my body rather than dictating with my mind. Don’t get me wrong, not every day is exactly like this ;) but I do have at least 2 zero hunger days a week and it feels incredible to be so in sync with my life system!
So the global bare basics I have witnessed:
- Eliminate all processed & high sugar foods (find some tips here) & choose real food
- Embrace naturally occurring full/whole fats, grass fed animal proteins, oily fish & leafy vegetables
- Move functionally throughout the day - take the stairs, avoid static sitting for more than 1 hour.
Doing the above for a minimum of 30 consecutive days or until absolute and literal FEELING of the body's cleanliness occurs will highlight the effect fuelling has on the system, to then identify what works (optimum, happy functioning) and what doesn’t (bloating, cramping, aches, irritations).
If you have tried conventional medicinal avenues as well as eating real food and continue to feel your old symptoms/irritations consider:
- Reducing your fruit intake - stick to berries of all kinds
- Eliminating further starches & grains
- Seeking appropriate help and blood work
If you’re looking to lose weight, time to consider:
- reducing portion sizes
- explosive exercise for short periods of time
Once you're at your optimum, feeling good and want to reintroduce certain foods back into your diet, go ahead and TRY...now that you are "clean" and free of the over-riding "noise", your body will tell you what works!
My colleague, Plaxy Guhr puts it so eloquently in her Cereal Killers interview. She suggests we take responsibility for our own bodies, how we think we inherit our parents' genetics - but more specifically, we inherit their habits. Mark Sisson spoke a great deal about this paradigm shift of changing one’s food belief system, one that is ingrained in us - pun intended! We also most definitely need to shift our perception and expectation of the healthy body visual!
I’ve been wheat free, meat free, dairy free and SKINNY…but NEVER this happy, healthy and strong!
Sign up here for my ebook, “Strong is my new Skinny”, detailing my personal Prime Living Plan journey.
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