Top Stress Relievers

While looking through some of your comments about favorite ways to de-stress during the holidays it seemed like two methods took the forefront.

1. Relaxing beverages (alcohol or some type of tea)
2. Cardio work at the gym (primarily running)

These are both some of my favorites as well. For those that enjoy a good cup of tea here is an interesting link that shows a faily solid correlation between drinking tea and mitigating the release of cortisol (stress hormone). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5405686.stm

For those of you who are unfamiliar with cortisol it is essentially the stress hormone that is responsible for our ancestral "fight or flight" response. Now, most of us don't scavenge for food or fight to kill our dinner but we do experience a cortisol release from anxiety over tests, relationships, shopping for Christmas gifts etc..
So, check that article out and see if you can keep your cortisol levels low this holiday season.

Running also serves as a stress manager when it comes to cortisol production. I find that running some intense intervals followed by short rest periods works better than steady state cardio, but it is really up to the individual. The intense work really gets your heart pumping and is a sure fire way to get some aggression and stress out of your body in a time efficient manner.

Finals! Holidays! Stress!

With the stress of finals and the holidays quickly approaching we are all feeling a little stressed to say the least. I'm always very interested to hear what kind of coping mechanisms people use in order to combat the stress associated with this time of year. It is important to have some stress relievers in your arsenal to avoid going off the rails mentally or nutritionally.  My top three stress relievers look something like this.

1. Take a nap.
2. Turn all electronics off (for a little while anyway.)
3. Go to the gym.

What are some of your favorite or most effective ways of beating the holiday stress?

What You CAN Eat

So getting started with this routine can seem a lot more of a daunting task than it needs to be. People often get scared out of doing something beneficial for themselves because they're more worried about restrictions and limitations than the actual allowances and benefits. So, to make things a little easier on everyone just starting out let's skip the limitations and take a look at what we CAN and SHOULD eat while on a Paleolithic Diet.

*Photo courtesy of www.fitbomb.com

Getting Started

If you're reading this hopefully you already have a rough understand of what the Paleo diet looks like. For this post however I'll just assume everyone is new to this concept and explain a little bit about it.

The word Paleo comes unsurprisingly from the Paleolithic era and the diet strives to make our consumption of food as close as possible to that of our Paleolithic ancestors. Evolution takes time (lots of time) for our bodies to adapt and change. Our bodies and internal systems are still roughly identical to that of our ancestors which is why modern Neolithic foods have a tendency to make us overweight and sick.

Eating a Paleo diet can prevent and even reverse a whole host of diseases found in contemporary culture such as:

• Diabetes
• Obesity
• Metabolic Derangement
• Hyperinsulinism
• Autoimmune Diseases 

Eating a Paleo diet is much easier than most people think. Basically if our ancestors had access to it then it is fair game (i.e. Meat, Fish, Poultry, Pork, Veggies, Fruit, Nuts, Seeds).
As you'll most likely notice nothing is off limits except for BREAD, GRAINS, and DAIRY.

NO BREAD?!?!

 Most people turn away at the thought of no bread without giving the science behind this a fair shake. We will get further into how bread and grains are a silent killer in posts to come.

Welcome!

This blog is intended to be a jumping off point for anyone interested in adopting a "Paleo" diet. Through this blog I hope to show exactly how greatly you can improve your life with simple nutritional changes.