Kids, Carbs, and Connecting Mind and Body for Health
When it comes to raising kids, sometimes there is not a lot of thought going on. 
Last weekend, I attended my nephew’s 3-year old birthday party. There were probably 15 other kids around his age there. Let’s take a look at what was on the menu:
1. Capri Sun. Ohhh, but this is the 100% fruit juice one! Still, there is probably as much sugar as there is in soda.
2. Corn chips. Yummy, salty, & addictive!
3. Candy, LOTS of candy. In fact, there was not just one, but TWO pinatas, filled with Tootsie Rolls, Dum Dums, Sweettarts, and some unknown white chocolate treats. Kids had pockets full of this stuff that’s usually reserved for Halloween!
4. Pizza! What kids birthday party would be complete without pizza?
5. And of course, cake, because their insulin levels needed to be jacked up just a little more!
I’m pretty sure I was the only one in attendance who saw anything wrong with the eating agenda. And, I know what you might be thinking: “Don’t be such a party pooper! Live a little once in a while!” I do get that this isn’t a daily thing for most of the kids (at least lets hope not). However, I’m looking more at the question of why do we as a society feel that carb craziness is just part of life as a kid, particularly at a birthday party?
I think it comes down to this. Most of us grew up with this same sort of routine carb indulgence around holidays and birthdays. Many still do participate in this on a regular basis. So, we think “we turned out okay, why should I deprive my kid?” Or, it’s simply that questioning the premise here is just too difficult.
Imagine serving healthy snacks like beef jerky, instead of junk food?
What if they didn’t get juice and had to drink…water?
And, wouldn’t it be sac-religious to not have birthday cake??
So it comes down to keeping social connections in tact and not rocking the boat and risking isolation from friends.
You see, it all comes down to self esteem, and being able to individualize when you know what is the best route to take, even if that means going against the stream.
I think there’s a way to “have your cake and eat it too” here (and not even have to serve cake!). Some things can be outright skipped, i.e. pinata hitting can be replaced with another game that doesn’t involve candy. Soda or juice can be sparkling water or even some semi-healthy drinks like flavored coconut water or the low sugar Vitamin Water. Vegetable chips over corn chips, steak instead of pizza, and are you ready….a paleo dessert like this chocolate custard instead of cake!
It all may sound insane at first glance, but a healthy and still fun kids birthday party is all totally doable. You may get questioned by your friends at first, but who knows, you may influence them in some way by leading by example, and showing what a healthy family looks like!
What about you? What do your birthday parties look like?
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Extremism in Nutrition
Yesterday, a question was posed on a paleo diet forum that I visit. 
This person said she had just started to eat paleo-style, and was really hungry, but felt like she was eating too many nuts so was trying to cut down on them.
Many hard-core paleo types chimed in:
“Yes, stay away from nuts! Just eat big meals and don’t snack, that’s what I do!”
“Eat real foods! Stay away from nuts!”
“Eat more vegetables!”
I’m getting the feeling that some people are starting to get a little extreme on their devotion to all things paleo. First of all, “strict paleo” is a myth. You will never be able to eat true paleo, because it’s impossible- unless you are going to go out and kill the animals yourself, and eat the organs and all!
People wanted to advise this woman to stay away from nuts. Tom me, this idea of staying away from nuts is….nuts! The latest trend seems to be that nuts have too many omega-6 fatty acids and therefore, would throw off the sacred omega6:3 ratio which I hear should be around 3:1 or so.
I have issues with that. First of all, who came up with this ultimate ratio? It seems no different to me than going back to the Zone ratios of 40/30/30, and pretty soon we’re going back to calorie counting obsession!
Of course we do want to get plenty of omega 3 fats in our diets, as they are anti-inflammatory in nature. However, eliminating nuts is not necessarily the pinnacle of health. As Mark Sisson pointed out in his article on Nuts and Omega-6s, “Isolating Omega-6 fatty acids and then exposing them to air or heat is bad dietary policy.”.
So isolating omega-6 fats, rather than eating whole nuts, is the problem.
Now, am I suggesting we all go hog-wild on nuts? No!! It’s better to get your fats from wild caught fish and grass fed beef, and avocados, and a bunch of other things.
But let’s get back to the original question, if someone is hungry all the time, should they be looking to avoid nuts?
This is mostly an individual call. Bigger meals may help here. More veggies may help, so might adding fats like olive oil or coconut oil to meals.
But let’s say you eat lunch around noon most days, and let’s say that you like to exercise around 6pm. For me, I could not go 5.5 hours and still have enough energy to work out without consuming some food beforehand. Can you skip the nuts? Sure, but they are a convenient, filling snack. I also mix in avocadoes, fruit, and even a packaged energy bar here and there. (I can here the screaming now, “OH NO YOU’RE NOT PALEO!!!!”). This works for me. I typically will eat 4-5 times a day. If I eat less, I will usually be hungry.
The point is there is no paleo prescription, there is no perfect macronutrient ratio, or exact times you should or should not be eating.
Once obesity levels are no longer an issue, I say we have an all-out knock-down drag out caveman brawl about the minutia. Until then, by all means go paleo, but keep it in the realm of something that you can do, not something to get all nutty over.
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78 – Ancestral health symposium reflections
(duration 25:40)
This episode we discuss briefly the film Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead and the costly perspective of “living the good life” while having an unhealthy lifestyle. We don’t need to just roll the genetic (and environmental) dice in relation to health and fitness; we can take informed steps in the realm of nutrition and lifestyle in order to maximize our health and longevity. The 2011 Ancestral Health Symposium at UCLA brought together many individuals who are dedicated to human vitality and the knowledge and practices of how to ensure it. The loss of muscle mass over time (sarcopenia) can be counteracted through weight or resistance training, which can be performed up to your last year (or week) of life!
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Items mentioned in this episode:
http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/
http://ancestryfoundation.org/
http://ancestryfoundation.org/Ancestral_Health_files/AHS%20Abstracts.pdf
http://vimeo.com/ancestralhealthsymposium
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/08/calcium-channels-and-aging-muscles.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_LaLanne
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The Ancestral Health Symposium (AHS) 2011
Last week, Friday and Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending the first annual Ancestral Health Symposium (AHS) held at UCLA. I snuck in as a volunteer!
I had such a great experience overall and wanted to blog some of the highlights here.
There was a huge list of amazing speakers, and there were 2 tracks so you couldn’t possibly see everything you wanted. Also, as a volunteer, I was unable to attend a few because of the responsibilities I had. But I made it to more talks than I thought I would!
They will be releasing all the talks on video. I’ll post here when they do. But for now, just a few tidbits (going off of memory, as I did not take any notes).
First, the volunteer team was a really amazing group! I felt lucky to have met everyone and hearing everyone’s story and how they arrived at paleo. Overall, the impression I get with paleo/primal types is that they are generally happy and open-minded (rejecting everything you ever thought you knew in the area of nutrition is probably the reason why here!).
I don’t really have a favorite talk, most of the ones I saw were top-notch. However, here are a few that really motivated me:
Mark Sisson/Marks Daily Apple: He spoke about bringing back play into your life. I was so happy to hear this message, as my priority with workouts these days has been to have fun with whatever I’m doing. He made a lot of good points about how it is so important to our health to have fun! Dragging yourself to the gym a few days a week can get old really fast, why not try activities where there is no “goal”, and instead it is just about being in the moment? He discussed this idea of being present, and not being attached to the outcome. It really hit me that playing is a great way to be completely in the moment (he even showed a picture of himself on a paddle board with a dolphin right next to him, on a day when the dolphins were especially playful!).
Erwan LeCorre/MovNat: MovNat is probably the most revolutionary concept at the Symposium. Erwan really knows his stuff and delivers it in a compelling and humorous way. At one point he showed a picture of a mountain lion, and said “What do you think he does, strength training twice a week with a little cardio mixed in?” The overall message was the same one he’s been putting out there- train your body to work with nature. Why are you doing the exercise you are currently doing? What is the purpose? The MovNat message is extremely motivating to me, and made me want to get out there and move naturally, instead of sitting through another talk!
Tom Naughton/Fat Head Movie: Definitely the funniest talk of the weekend, Tom took a shot at both “bad science” and the mainstream media who love to spin stories. He showed a variety of examples of times where correlation does not equal causation- including a study where they “proved” that eating meat causes cancer- but unfortunately were including meat on a pizza as eating meat, without considering everything else! I really liked the end of the talk. Someone in the audience asked how are we going to change things? His answer was to make the government with it’s FDA and USRDA wings irrelevant, by bringing the truth to light!
So many more of the sessions were fantastic and I highly recommend checking out the videos when they are available.
Next year, I’d like to make a push to include a psychology angle that was not presented- self esteem as it relates to weight loss and health. There were a couple of good presentations on how food affects mood and behavior, which is an important topic, but Wes & I could add another dimension to this mind-body equation that is tremendously important to overall health. Hopefully there will be a HMFB talk at AHS12!
Special thanks to Aaron Blaisdell and Brent Pottenger for putting this amazing event together!
