Hey folks, Board-Certified Health Coach Erin Power is here to answer your questions about Primal dating. If you’re wondering when and how to “break the news,” we’ve got strategies, tips, and backup! Have a question you’d like to ask our health coaches? Leave it below in the comments or over in the Mark’s Daily Apple Facebook group.
Cara asked:
“I’ve been Primal for a year and honestly never felt better! It was hard at first but now comes naturally and makes me feel so much lighter. I also lost 10 pounds, which doesn’t hurt! The problem: I’m newly single and on dating apps. I don’t want to turn guys off by being high maintenance. Do I mention I’m Primal in my profile? Or wait until the first date? Or wait to see how things go? Help!”
First, congrats on your year of Primal eating and living, Cara! How wonderful that you feel lighter and better. Huge recognition as well for exploring this question and considering how eating and lifestyle plays a role in dating and relationships. Feeling healthy and more confident and comfortable in one’s body can be so attractive. It creates the sort of compelling radiance that goes beyond “objective” indicators like body weight or beauty.
Not only that, but a little boost of confidence goes a long way as you enter the dating pool. Anyway, onto the matter at hand: how to navigate declaring your Primal status to would-be suitors.
Ask and Tell. Or… Don’t.
These days, it’s far more common for people to ask about and mention their “eating identities” or preferences when sharing a meal with someone for the first time. While we’re focused on dating here, this applies to new friends, acquaintances, and colleagues too. The point is, choosing to eat a particular way is hardly unusual these days. That said, I totally get how navigating conversations around food and lifestyle can be tricky in any relationship—perhaps all the more so when newly dating.
The good news is, you’re arriving with a blank slate and fresh start. As a Primal Health Coach, I work with many clients who are making changes and struggle to explain their new Primal ways to partners, friends, and family members. If it’s important to you, you’ll want to share this aspect of yourself with acquaintances, new and old.
But there’s another option here: Just don’t say anything at all. At least, not right away. It may not be necessary.
The person you’re out on a date with probably won’t notice anything is amiss with your eating habits. If you order a big ass salad, a delicious steak, or a low-sugar cocktail at a restaurant, it’s not going to raise any red flags. Decide to forgo the bread basket? No problem: avoiding or limiting bread is becoming increasingly common in non-Primal circles too.
Priorities and Values
Beyond that, you likely want to be with someone whose priorities and values are similar to your own. This doesn’t mean that they have to embrace the 10 Primal Blueprint Rules (though if they do, what a catch!). It does mean that you may want to consider whether they, like you, are interested in a healthy lifestyle and healthy eating. If they balk at a few healthy food choices, that could be a sign that they aren’t the right match for you.
Whatever you do, don’t enter into a new relationship with expectations of changing how the other person eats. Accept where they are and, if it’s not aligned with a Primal lifestyle, decide whether that’s okay for you or a dealbreaker. Also know that modeling healthy eating without pressure or judgement is probably the best approach to encouraging changes and getting folks to give Primal a try.
Eating and living in ways that make you feel your best is NOT high maintenance, by the way. It’s one of the most important, most impactful forms of self-care. Plus, in supporting your own vitality and longevity, you’re better able to show up for others. Primal Eating is obviously working for you. It’d be a shame to let that slide for the sake of seeming “low maintenance.” Don’t waiver on your own values.
Primal Dating Basics and Strategies
To sum up the basics:
Own up to it right away as you would with any other important, telling aspect of your character OR go with the flow and honor your Primal-ness without feeling the need to announce it at all.
Don’t try or expect to change anyone else.
Decide whether your prospect’s priorities and values align closely enough with your own.
I know sometimes it can seem easiest just to “go along” rather than explain what you eat and why. And, to be clear, don’t feel as though you have to explain anything! Still, leaning into the above basics makes for a good policy. It will likely increase your chances of finding a perfect match…and the chances of it lasting.
Along with the above, make it easier on yourself! Try these 3 simple tips:
1. Eat out.
If newly dating means eating out, make sure you have strategies in place. The free Primal and Keto Guide to Eating Out is a great start. In addition, suggest restaurants or food trucks that have Primal options you’ll enjoy. Being able to order separately removes the pressure of needing to eat the same thing as your companion.
2. Pack a picnic.
Alternatively, offer to cook dinner at home or pack a picnic! This provides a perfect opportunity to ask about the other person’s preferences and mention your own. It also ensures you’ll have tasty Primal food to enjoy, regardless of how the date turns out.
3. Find a Primal date.
Beyond declaring your nutritional preferences in your online dating profile, also consider places where Paleo and Primal ideologies are more widespread. Seek out groups and events (whether online or in real life) that feature topics such as keto, intermittent fasting, functional medicine, and biohacking.
Conferences like KetoCon or the Metabolic Health Summit are examples of larger scale health conferences where you’re sure to find some Primal-aligned allies. Gyms and Facebook groups are a fantastic starting place, too.
For Primal backup navigating the dating pool while staying true to your wellness goals, I recommend hiring a coach. External accountability truly is a game changer, and we can help you troubleshoot your specific circumstances and tricky social situations. Working with a coach for even a month or two can help you put solid strategies in place for staying Primal while dating or hanging with family and friends. Visit myprimalcoach.com to learn more and get started!
Do you come out as Primal when first meeting someone? Have any Primal dating tips to share? Let us know and drop other questions for me in the comments!
Massages are expensive. And your favorite place is always booked. But there’s a reason why many top athletes get massages every single day: they improve recovery, assist in healing, and increase mobilization of your joints and muscles. While most of us can’t get massages as often as we’d like, we can obtain some of the benefits by performing self myofascial release on ourselves.
What is Self Myofascial Release?
Self myofascial release, or SMR is a type of self-massage that focuses on adhesions, knots, or tender spots in the muscle—and the fascia that surrounds and envelopes it—often using tools or implements to effect real change. The popular conception is that SMR is “breaking up” muscle knots in a real physical sense, but this probably isn’t the case. What you’re doing is triggering a neuromuscular response that reduces the tenderness and allows better, more fluid movement through the affected tissues.
You’re “teaching” your nervous system not to tense up and tighten when the tissue is poked and prodded or movement is initiated. You’re blunting the pain and wiping the movement pattern slate clean so that you can then go in and establish a new, better pattern.
How to Do Self Myofascial Release the Right Way
The way most people I see do SMR is they sit on the foam roller (or lacrosse ball, or whatever tool you’re using) for an hour, exploring all their tissues, hitting every body part and being extremely thorough. Sounds great, but it’s the wrong way. Basically, you don’t want to turn self myofascial release into a total body workout in and of itself, because you’re negating the real opportunity the practice presents.
Mobilization before training
SMR works best on a short time horizon. When you hit a tender spot and it starts feeling better, you should immediately work that tissue—preferably under load. This helps establish a healthier, better movement pattern. You’re effectively wiping the movement pattern slate clean and then establishing a superior one.
The thing is that the effect SMR is fleeting. If you wait too long to train a movement after hitting an area, the “neuromuscular inhibiting effect” disappears, or at least diminishes.
Sit on the lacrosse ball, hit the foam roller, or whichever implement you want and then immediately after load the tissues you just “released.” This will entrain the movement patterns you just opened up and begin mobilizing the tissues the way they’re designed to move.1
If you mobilized your shoulders, immediately hit some rows, pull-ups, pushups, and/or presses. If you mobilized your hips or calves, do some squats.
Whatever movements the tissues were inhibiting or “making sticky,” do those movements and begin entraining newer, healthier patterns. There isn’t a lot of compelling clinical research support for self myofascial release, and I think the primary reason is that people aren’t doing it the right way. They aren’t “releasing” the tissue and then loading it with resistance training in order to “cement” the improved movement pattern.
Stress release after a long day
It also makes sense to do SMR at rest, perhaps while you’re watching TV or something. Get down on the floor and make the otherwise “non-productive” time suddenly productive. This is a great way to relax, sort of an active form of meditation. I often do this after the sauna—warm up the tissues, make them more “pliable,” and then do some light self myofascial release.
Don’t tense up
When you do the actual SMR, relax into it. Don’t tense up, even if it’s painful (and it will be painful at times). Don’t grimace. Any outward expression of pain and discomfort will register with your nervous system. What you’re trying to do here is reassure your body that you can handle the pain, that the pain isn’t all that bad, and the tissue can start feeling better.
Focus on the tissues above and below the painful area
If your knee hurts, releasing the knee itself probably won’t help. If your calves hurt, massaging the calves can help but not right at the spot in the calf where it hurts. Instead, focus on the tissues above and below the painful area. Keep rolling/releasing/massaging/scraping the tissues around the painful area, working your way above and below until you find the tender spot.
The Best Self Myofascial Release Tools and How to Use Them
1. Scraper
A scraper is a metal implement that resembles a dull blade that you can use to massage the fascia. First, use it lengthwise along the muscle fibers—”with the grain”—to “lengthen” the fascia. To confirm you’re going with the grain, look at a muscular anatomy image and look for the muscle you’re targeting. Next, scrape at a 45°-90° angle to the grain of the muscle and think about “broadening” the fascia.
You can do superficial scraping across entire limbs or targeted scraping that focuses on individual muscles and muscle bundles. Don’t go too hard. It shouldn’t hurt, but it may be uncomfortable. This scraper is a good one.
2. Lacrosse ball (or two)
Lacrosse balls are hard, dense, heavy balls the size of tennis balls that you can use to pinpoint hard-to-reach tissues. Hamstrings, the TFL, the glutes, the pecs, and specific points in the thoracic spine seem to respond well to lacrosse balls. They offer more direct, targeted pressure and can really get deep in there. Tape two balls together to provide more stability and hit tissues from different angles.
3. Foam roller
A foam roller is a blunt and broad SMR device. It can hit large swathes of tissues. You can adjust the resistance by placing as much or as little of your weight onto the roller.
Explore range of motion when you roll. When you find a tight, tender spot on your quad for example, stay on that spot. Then extend and flex your knee through its full range of motion. This seems to make foam rolling more effective than if you were to just stay on the spot with zero movement through the knee.
4. Theragun or Hyperice massage guns
Both the Theragun and Hypervolt devices are mechanical percussive massage devices that effectively vibrate against your tissues.
They can help improve range of motion, increase mobility, and are probably most effective used pre-workout or to potentiate the adoption of a new motor pattern—just like the other tools listed here. However, you must exercise caution. These can be powerful little tools, and I know of at least one case of a cyclist giving herself rhabdomyolysis through excessive use.2 Use it sparingly and do not linger on a single tissue for more than a minute.
5. Massage cane
The cane is curved with proper ergonomics for letting you hit places you’d otherwise have trouble reaching, like the back, neck, and shoulders. What’s also nice is the double dense balls at one end, which you can use like two lacrosse balls taped together. This massage cane is a good one.
6. Voodoo Floss bands
These are compressive wraps that apply strong pressure to tight tissues and help increase blood flow (and thus healing) to the area. If your knee is feeling tight and uncomfortable during squats, for example, you might wrap the quad right above the knee, then do squats. Or if you have elbow pain, wrap above or below the elbow and then practice flexion and extension. After a few sets of Voodoo Flossing, remove the bands and try the movement again. It should feel better than it did before the treatment.
If you don’t have anything at all, using your own elbow to dig into tender places can work quite well. You’re obviously limited as to which tissues your elbow can reach, but you can get pretty creative.
What Do I Use for Self Myofascial Relase?
As for me, I’m not a big devotee of self myofascial release. I think frequent movement, lots of walking, taking cold plunges, generally reducing stress, and never really overdoing it in the gym are my keys to good movement and pain-free tissues. If I were still competing in endurance sports at a high level, I’d probably change my tune and fill my closet with every tool under the sun—or get daily massages.
I do like the Voodoo bands and the scraper, and I keep a lacrosse ball or two around to work my glutes, hips or thoracic spine when I need it.
What about you, folks? Ever try self myofascial release? What tools do you like to use?
Sunshine, beach days, camping, cookouts—there’s a lot to love about summer. My favorite part of summer is when the seasonal summer vegetables hit my community farmer’s market. Strolling past table after table laden with freshly picked berries, heirloom tomatoes, and green vegetables galore makes me happy deep in my soul.
Summer’s also ripe (no pun intended) for getting out and digging in the dirt in your own backyard or patio planter boxes. Even if you don’t have a lot of space or a green thumb, you can get started with a little herb garden or a single tomato plant. There’s something incredibly satisfying about eating food you grew, even if it’s just sprinkling fresh parsley over your spaghetti squash chicken parmesan. You’ll feel like you’re starring in your own cooking show once you master that technique of sprinkling herbs and finishing salt from high above the plate. Bam!
The point is, fresh fruits and vegetables are one of the highlights of the season, so take full advantage of what these summer months have to offer.
8 Summer Fruits and Vegetables We Love
Asparagus
Depending on where you live, you might be able to harvest asparagus anywhere from late winter to early summer. Green asparagus is most common, but don’t miss the opportunity to try the purple or white varieties if you find them. All types of asparagus are delicious grilled, sautéed, or roasted, but take care not to overcook it. Limp, slimy asparagus is less than appealing. Ot, try shaving raw asparagus into salads using a vegetable peeler.
How to store asparagus: Trim the ends off the spears, then stand the asparagus upright in a jar of water in the fridge. Asparagus only keeps for a few days, so use it asap.
How to preserve asparagus: Asparagus can be frozen or pressure canned, though both change the texture significantly (and not always pleasantly). Also try pickling it.
How to freeze asparagus: Trim off the woody ends before freezing. Optionally chop the spears into two or three pieces each. Blanch the asparagus for two minutes for thin spears or up to four minutes for thick spears. Freeze in a single layer on a baking sheet, then transfer to an airtight container.
Freshly picked berries are one of the absolute highlights of summer. Even low-carb and keto folks make allowances for berries due to their high nutritional value and relatively low carbohydrate content compared to a lot of other fruits. You’ll find all manner of berries at your summer farmer’s market, including blueberries, strawberries, and “brambles,” the family of berries that includes raspberries, boysenberries, blackberries, huckleberries, and marionberries, among others.
How to store berries: To wash or not to wash, that is the question… and there’s no clear answer. Some people argue that you shouldn’t wash berries until you’re ready to eat them. Others claim that you should give them a dunk in a 3:1 solution of water and white vinegar to kill mold spores and prolong shelf life. (Except raspberries—everyone seems to agree that you shouldn’t wash raspberries until just before eating.) If you go the vinegar bath route, let them soak for a minute or two, give them a good rinse, and lay them out to dry on a kitchen towel. Either way, store berries in the fridge in a container lined with a thin towel to absorb moisture. Reuse plastic clamshells from the store or use a covered glass container, but keep the lid cracked. Change out the towel if it becomes damp. Store different types of berries in separate containers, as some spoil faster than others.
How to preserve berries: Freezing is the best way to preserve berries. You can also pressure can them as preserves or jelly, but look for recipes that don’t contain heaps of added sugar.
Cucumbers have a long and storied history as one of the first domesticated plants. What’s your favorite type of cuke? It probably depends on whether you grew up eating the thicker-skinned slicing cucumbers most common in America, English cucumbers with thinner skins and fewer seeds, smaller and more delicate Persian cucumbers, or something else altogether. There are almost 100 varieties to choose from.
How to store cucumbers: Cucumbers are happy hanging out in the crisper drawer in your refrigerator.
Eggplants, aka aubergines, are a dietary staple around the world. Fun fact: despite their vegetably taste, eggplants are actually fruit—berries, to be more precise, because they grow from a single flower.
How to store eggplant: Eggplants don’t last long after harvesting, and they don’t like cold. You can keep them in the fridge for a day or two, but they’ll start to wither after that.
How to preserve eggplant: You can try freezing or pickling, but it’s really best to eat eggplant fresh.
Yes, green beans are legumes, but before you toss that green bean casserole, I have good news. Green beans are, and have always been, considered Primal-friendly as long as you don’t have any issues eating them. Fresh green beans don’t have the same phytate concerns as dried beans, and many folks who avoid dried beans can enjoy green beans without issue, at least occasionally.
How to store green beans: Keep in a storage bag in the crisper drawer. Try to use within three days or so.
How to preserve green beans: Frozen and home-canned green beans are both fantastic, or try pickling them.
Herbs don’t just make food taste good, they also offer a variety of health benefits from antioxidant properties to treating digestive distress. All herbs flourish in the summer. They’re easy to grow indoors or out, in small containers or large garden beds. Perfect for beginning gardeners or folks who want to plant a small kitchen garden.
How to store herbs: When possible, wait to cut fresh herbs until you are ready to use them. If you buy them from the market, pull off any dead leaves, trim the bottom of the stems, and place bundles of herbs in jars of water like flower bouquets. Store jars of tender-stemmed herbs like parsley and cilantro in the fridge, optionally covered loosely with a food storage bag. Woody herbs like rosemary, oregano, and thyme can stay on the counter. Basil should also stay on the counter; cold temps make the leaves turn black. Refresh the water as needed. Most herbs will keep for a couple weeks or more with this technique.
How to preserve herbs: When it comes to preserving herbs, you have two main options. The first is drying–using a dehydrator or let fresh herbs dry in the sun. You can even use a microwave to dry herbs! The second is freezing– blend herbs in olive oil, avocado oil, or water, then freeze in ice cube trays. Oil-based herby sauces likepestoandchimichurrialso freeze well jars or ice cube trays. Or makecompound butter, which can also be frozen wrapped in freezer paper. (Tip, slice it before freezing so you can thaw individual pats of butter as needed.)
You can also use infuse fresh herbs into oil, salt, or spirits like vodka or gin.
Is there anything more quintessentially summer than garden fresh tomatoes? There are a million and one ways to enjoy summer tomatoes, so eat up! (And yes, for the record, tomatoes are a fruit.)
How to store tomatoes: If your tomatoes aren’t quite ripe when you get them home from the farmer’s market, you can place them in a loosely closed paper bag on the counter to encourage ripening. For ripe tomatoes, there’s considerable debate about whether the counter or the crisper is the appropriate place to keep them. Some say the crisper saps them of flavor, so you should only refrigerate them if you need them to stay fresh for longer than a few days.
How to preserve tomatoes: Can whole tomatoes, chopped tomatoes, or one of the many salsa and sauce recipes featuring these delectable fruits. Salsa or sauces freeze well, too. Dry tomatoes and store them in oil.
Like eggplants, zucchini are botanically classified as berries (as are cucumbers and pumpkins!) Zucchinis are prolific, which is why your neighbor with the green thumb is always trying to pawn off excess zucchini come late summer. They’re also incredibly versatile as an ingredient in everything from salads to desserts, so accept any and all offers of free zucchini!
How to store zucchini: Keep in the crisper and try to use within a few days.
How to preserve zucchini: You can freeze zucchini, but probably best ways to preserve it are to make zucchini chips in the dehydrator or zucchini muffins or bread to stick in the freezer.
Today my pal Brad from bradkearns.com will discuss how you can evolve your fitness goals to age gracefully, preserve health, and pursue peak performance with passion throughout life.
An Athlete Through the Years
It feels as though I’ve had two distinct and disparate athletic careers in my lifetime. Many years ago I was an endurance athlete. It started with distance running in high school (mile and 2-mile in track and 3-mile cross country course) and progressed into a nine-year career as a professional triathlete. I competed primarily at the standard Olympic Games distance of 1.5-kilometer (0.9-mile) swim, 40-kilometer (24.8-mile) bike, and 10-kilometer (6.2-mile run). This event takes under two hours. I particularly enjoyed the occasional “sprint” event around half the aforementioned distances. I also competed at long and ultra-distance. I was 5th in the World Long Distance Championships in France in ’88 (~6 hour race) and I still hold the USA age 24&under record at Hawaii Ironman (~9 hour race) from ’89. Inside the triathlon bubble, we’d distinguish between a short course specialist with more “speed” and a long course specialist with more endurance.
Technically, any triathlon, even a so-called sprint race, is an extreme endurance event from a physiological perspective. Endurance training guru Dr. Phil Maffetone cites exercise physiology research that 98% of the energy for two-hour competition comes from the aerobic system. Amazingly, even the mile run is predominantly aerobic, and the cutoff point for an all-out performance that’s half aerobic and half anaerobic is an effort of just one-minute, fifteen seconds!
Long retired from the professional circuit (27 years!), I’ve become more focused on a broader approach to fitness and pursuing competitive goals that are brief and explosive in nature. In 2018 at age 53, I broke the Guinness World Record in Speedgolf for the fastest single hole of golf ever played (must be minimum length of 500 yards), an all-out sprint (while golfing!) that took 1 minute, 38 seconds. After many years of recreational high jumping, I finally got on the board in 2020 with an official jump that was #1 ranked in the USA Masters Track&Field age 55-59 division. I’m recently over 5’1” (1.54m) at age 57 and will continue to raise the bar in my best attempt to age gracefully.
My obsession with high jumping is strange in that the sport’s objective takes around four seconds—a three second approach and one second from takeoff to landing (okay, Barshim might be in the air a bit longer than that.) That’s a pretty dramatic difference from racing triathlon for hours! I’m clearly less genetically adapted for high jumping than I was for endurance, but the important thing is I have a tremendous passion for the event and for personal improvement regardless of my genetic predispositions. When I achieve a good clearance over the bar in an empty high school stadium, I scream with delight like it’s the Olympic finals. In the most every important way, my satisfaction of success from this later-in-life folly is just as powerful as winning a race on the pro circuit with ESPN cameras and prize checks involved.
Regarding genetics, former Olympic 400-meter runner Andrew Steele made an important point on episode 56 of the Primal Blueprint Podcast years ago that genetic markers are only a sliver of the entire package compromising one’s athletic potential, with one’s natural competitive interest being the most prominent. This idea counters today’s over-pressurized approach to youth sports, and a potential obsession with genetic testing to identify prodigies and immerse them into the correct sport. Steele, a former principal at the DNA Fit genetic testing operation, was shocked to discover that he had predominantly endurance genetics in his muscle fiber composition—despite being one of the fastest 400-meter sprinters in the world (he was an Olympic bronze medalist in the 4 x 400m relay and individual semi-finalist in Beijing 2008, with a best of 44.94.) For Steele, this revelation suggested that he train for his favorite event with relatively more endurance stimulation than explosive stimulation—as might be the best choice for a more genetically explosive athlete.
How to Keep Pursing Fitness with Passion
My healthy competitive intensity aligns with my most compelling message and mission: to pursue peak performance with passion throughout life. Granted, it’s essential to continually recalibrate your goals to align gracefully with your age and lifestyle circumstances, and be supportive of health and longevity rather than compromise them. During a decade of my youth, my extreme devotion to triathlon training, competing and global jet travel challenged my health in many ways, and literally accelerated aging in many ways. When I retired at age 30, my body and my spirit felt like I was 80. I was fried. Today, I believe my sensible, time efficient fitness regimen and healthy competitive intensity support general health and longevity instead of compromise them. Doing something you love is arguably the most important element of your fitness and competitive direction. Take strength training legend Mark Smelly Bell, who enthusiastically integrates long distance running into his fitness regimen! I propose many of us are capable of more enjoyment and better health outcomes when we pursue fitness goals appropriately.
One awakening I’ve had recently is to reframe my perspective about steady-state cardiovascular exercise. Any form of exercise delivers an excellent cardiovascular training effect, however, sometimes the typical approach to steady state cardio can easily become health destructive. When we engage in a recurring pattern of medium-to-difficult intensity, steady-state cardiovascular workouts we can experience a chronic overproduction of stress hormones that lead to breakdown, burnout, illness and injury. Therefore, when it comes to cardio, I acknowledge that walking and general everyday movement offer great cardio benefits, that it’s easy to overdo it, and that the more extreme you get (marathon, ultras, half-iron and iron-distance triathlon), the more you put your health at risk.
I discussed these concepts in detail in an important two-part piece titled, “Don’t Jog, It’s Too Dangerous Part 1” and “Don’t Job, It’s Too Dangerous Part 2“. My passion for jumping and becoming more a resilient, injury-resistant athlete in general led me to revise my typical morning jog. I created a more interesting, varied, and challenging outing (as noted in this Jogging 2.0 video) that delivers all the cardiovascular benefits of a steady-state jog but brings in elements of balance, mobility, flexibility and explosiveness along the way.
Here is a suggested protocol to help you continue your journey to peak performance into the older age groups:
I have a five-year streak of doing a custom-designed, morning exercise routine every day, and it’s been truly life-changing. It’s become the centerpiece of preserving broad-based fitness competency as I age. The older we get, the more we need to work hard to establish a healthy baseline from which all formal workouts are launched. My 24-year-old son might be able to pull into a parking lot and jump right into a pickup basketball game after a few toe touches, but my margin for error in everything I do is much thinner these days. I assert the importance of maintaining a strong foundation after being sidelined from jumping and sprinting for six months with a minor knee injury, which actually turned out to be a muscle weakness/imbalance injury instead of a joint injury. Do something every day to stay mobile, strong and flexible. Also, seek expert attention when injured from athletic-minded progressive practitioners (chiropractic, massage, sports physical therapy.)
I am so enthusiastic about my morning exercise routine that I’ll claim it’s virtually mandatory for any fitness enthusiast over age 50. Whatever you do with your formal workouts (and hopefully micro-workouts), make a commitment to spending at least a few minutes getting the machine oiled as soon as you wake up. Seriously, if you only have six minutes to spare, that’s fine. But integrate a morning movement routine into habit so you can get the maximum benefit and minimal risk you’re your workouts. Visit BradKearns.com for details on how to design your own custom morning exercise routine.
Extensive Low-Level Movement
Strive to increase all forms of general every day movement. Take quick breaks for micro-workouts during the workday, walk whenever and wherever you can, utilize a standup desk—strive to move more in general as a top fitness priority. My Day In The Life video features a ton of different ideas for workplace variation and micro-workouts. If you are fan of steady-state cardio, be sure to conduct the vast majority of your sessions at or below the MAF heart rate of “180 minus age” in beats per minute.
Regular Resistance Training
The most anti-aging benefits come from putting your body under resistance load on a regular basis. Do whatever you enjoy most but do something where you load the muscles and perform brief, high intensity efforts. From a bread and butter of a proper 30-minute session at the gym throwing around weights or doing a machine circuit, you can sprinkle in micro-workouts such as 20 air squats at your desk, or a few sets of bodyweight exercise (pushups, pull-ups, squats, planks). I’m a big fan of the variable resistance training offered by the X3 Bar and Stretch Cordz, and also the all-around benefits offered by the hex bar deadlift.
Don’t overdo it with high intensity exercise. Workouts need never last more than 30 minutes (unless you have high level competitive goals) and all efforts should be performed with impeccable form and maximum explosiveness. Leave the “struggle and suffer” mentality behind and perform crisp, powerful workouts. End the workout if you notice your form and power falling off even a bit. Realize that a sprinkling of explosive effort here and there during a busy week can add up to tremendous fitness progress over time.
I’ve drifted away from doing big sessions at the gym in favor of doing shorter sessions: With all these fitness opportunities in view at home. I might combine 10 minutes with X3 bar, a few minutes of Stretch Cordz, a few sets of dead lifts, and a few sets of pull-ups. This gives me a tremendous total body workout without the risk of breakdown and extended recovery time that might happen from lots of today’s group fitness programming that tends to extends people too far. This includes CrossFit sessions, guided 1:1 or small group sessions with a trainer, or even going through the machines or barbell work with too many sets to the point of exhaustion and depletion. It’s up to you to respect your current fitness limitations, end workouts when form falters or fatigue accumulates, and stay in that sweet spot of performing regular explosive efforts without breaking down.
Sprinting/Jumping Workouts
Brief, explosive all-out efforts are the ultimate primal strategy for anti-aging, fat reduction and hormone optimization. A little goes a long way in this area, and research validates the idea that brief sprints deliver more fitness benefits than steady-state cardio sessions lasting much longer. For most people, one well designed sprint workout a week is plenty.
It’s very important to design a sprint workout correctly. First, include an extensive cardiovascular warmup to get your heart rate and respiration up and break a light sweat. Next comes dynamic stretching, technique drills, and wind sprints. The main set of sprints should almost always follow these guidelines: 4-10 reps of lasting between 10 and 20 seconds. Recovery is six times longer than the sprint, so one to two minutes between efforts. This will enable repeat explosive efforts of consistent quality—same time and level of perceived exertion and preserving excellent technique. If technique falters or more effort is required to achieve the same performance standard (e.g., 20 seconds for an 80-meter sprint), it’s time to end the workout.
In this article on sprinting and jumping, I present a detailed step-by-step protocol for my template workouts. These are scalable for all fitness levels, so please tiptoe into the world of explosive sprinting and jumping and strive to build competency over time in this all-important aspect of all-around fitness. If you are enjoying your sprinting and/or jumping endeavors, you can pair a weekly formal session with another downscaled session consisting of drills and skills. These are not as strenuous as a signature session, but still challenging, and definitely helpful to adapt to the more difficult sessions.
Many fitness enthusiasts are interested in how sprinting and jumping trigger the genetic signaling for fat loss. The penalty for carrying excess body fat when leaving the ground or running at full speed is so severe that your body will adapt very quickly by shedding excess weight. In contrast, there is minimal penalty for carrying excess body fat on a 100-mile bicycle ride or even a slow-paced marathon, which is why these impressive fitness accomplishments don’t necessarily support fat reduction.
Remember: Mornings, Movement, Muscles and Sprinting
If you aren’t current locked in on the objective of pursuing peak performance with passion throughout life, let’s not get overwhelmed with to-do list items. Keep it simple and focus on the four tips covered here: Get a morning exercise routine going of any kind and any duration. Start small, celebrate incremental progress, and build your commitment naturally over time. Resolve to move more in everyday life, especially taking frequent short breaks from prolonged periods of stillness. If you are into steady-state cardio, make sure the vast majority of your mileage is at MAF heart rate or below.
Put your body under some form of resistance load on a regular basis, no matter who you are. In December of 2021, my 85-year-old mother started Dr. John Jacquish’s lauded Osteostrong program—a simple once-a-week strength training session consisting of four, full-body compound movements and lasting only 10 minutes. Seniors can progress faster than any other age group in strength and bone density, so starting at any age can be a life saver or at least a quality of life enhancer! It’s best to get professional instruction before you get into serious resistance exercise, but if you want to get started gently then try doing a set of squats and pushups (with whatever modifications you need to align with your current capabilities) each day. Finally, get out there and sprint once a week—use it or lose it with all levels of metabolic, musculoskeletal, and hormonal function. If you aren’t yet ready to handle the impact of running sprints on flat ground, you can get started sprinting on a stationary bike or other cardio machine.
Thanks for considering these four suggestions, and remember to get started at any level of commitment no matter what. Even a few minutes a week of intense exercise is sufficient to significantly boost your strength and overall metabolic health.
Black seed oil is the perfect example of a medicinal whole food. It’s the cold pressed oil of the black cumin seed nigella sativa, which grows widely across Southern Europe, Western Asia and South Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. In the majority of those regions, black seed oil has extensive traditional use as a medicine or “cure-all.”
In ancient Egypt, the black cumin seed was a primary first-line medicine against an entire host of maladies. When archaeologists unearthed King Tut’s tomb, they found traces of black seed and black seed oil—ostensibly placed there to protect him as he made his way to the underworld. The Prophet Muhammad was reported to have said that “the black seed can heal every disease, except death.”1 For thousands of years, Indian Ayurvedic medicine prescribed black seed oil to treat hypertension, high blood sugar, eczema, asthma, and general diseases of inflammation.
I’m not saying these are fully accurate statements or beliefs, but they do show the reverence these cultures had for black seed oil and indicate its prowess as a medicine. Luckily, we don’t have to rely on ancient texts as the only evidence we have. There are hundreds of studies showing the efficacy of black seed oil in humans against a wide range of health conditions. Taken as a whole, it’s an impressive body of literature.
This is the Primal way: taking heed of traditional wisdom and confirming its accuracy with modern science.
Around here, we generally prefer medicinal whole foods—herbs, seeds, spices, and the like—to isolated or synthetic pharmacological compounds for several reasons:
The synergistic compounds that exist in the whole food medicine are more likely to enhance the effects and be missing from the synthetic version.
The synthetic compound will be geared toward a specific task, a one-trick pony, while the whole food medicine will be more likely to encompass other effects both up and down the line of causality.
Whole food medicines are also foods—they contain vitamins and minerals and macronutrients that nourish us. They aren’t just medicine; they’re much more. If nothing else, this is a more efficient way to obtain medicinal effects.
Health Benefits of Black Seed Oil
Let’s explore the health effects of black seed oil. To begin with, let’s dispel some notions and prejudices we have about “seed oils.” Industrial seed oils, like corn or canola oil, are stripped of nutrients that prevent lipid degradation, undergo high-heat and chemical processing, and have no redeeming qualities to make up for the high level of omega-6 linoleic acid present in the fat. In the Primal eating plan, we eliminate these industrial seed oils.
Black seed oil is a different kind of seed oil.
It’s unrefined, so that it contains all the protective components that help the fragile fatty acids resist oxidation and prevent rancidity. 2
It’s a medical oil, not a food, so we’re not using it to make salad dressings, fry potatoes, or incorporate in processed junk food. We aren’t eating enough of it to worry about it as a major source of omega-6 fatty acids in our diet.
Unlike the industrial seed oils, black seed oil has proven benefits that justify its inclusion in our diet.
Black Seed Oil for Diabetes
In patients with pre-diabetes—bad blood glucose numbers that don’t yet qualify for full-blown diabetes—black seed oil performed as well as or better than metformin, the “gold standard” pharmaceutical for diabetes. While both metformin and black seed oil groups saw improved glucose parameters, only black seed oil patients who took 450 mg of black seed oil twice a day (less than a teaspoon) saw better lipids and lower inflammation.3
In patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes (full blown), 1350 mg/day of black seed oil helped against but wasn’t as effective as metformin in improving fasting blood glucose or HbA1c. However, once again black seed oil patients enjoyed uniquely improved lipid numbers, lower fasting insulin, and lower inflammatory markers. Furthermore, metformin patients had higher liver enzymes and slightly elevated creatinine levels, while black seed oil patients did not.4 Both groups saw better body composition, including the all-important and extremely revealing waist circumference.
Seeing as how metformin has growing prominence as an all-around health-promoting prophylactic medicine for otherwise healthy people who want to live longer, black seed oil might be a more effective alternative with added benefits.
Most people probably assume that the problem with a sedentary lifestyle is that you aren’t moving. (Yes, I see the tautology there.) Every minute, every hour, spent sitting at your desk or lounging on the couch is time you aren’t walking, lifting heavy things, or sprinting. That’s part of the problem with being sedentary, to be sure, and I’ll touch on that in this post. There’s more to it than that, though.
Sedentary behavior is defined as waking activities that generate less than 1.5 METs—sitting and lying down, basically. Experts recognize that even controlling for how much exercise a person gets, sedentary behavior per se is bad for physical and mental health. In other words, even if you hit the gym and walk the dog regularly, being sedentary is harmful.
Sedentary behavior isn’t just the absence of movement; it is the presence of something more insidious.
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that sedentary behavior is more prevalent now than at any point in human history. Our grandparents’ generation was three times more likely to have moderately active jobs,1 in ye olden days before so many of us sat in front of computers to work (I say as I type away on my laptop). Even though our ancestors probably enjoyed considerably more leisure time than the average adult today, their non-work time didn’t resemble modern repose. When hanging out in the shade of a tree or sitting around the campfire swapping tall tales, they adopted rest postures like the once-ubiquitous deep squat. Their bodies weren’t cushioned and held in a static position by a comfy sofa or La-Z-Boy. Muscles throughout their bodies were activated, tissues statically stretched. They shifted their posture often for comfort and balance.
In short, our ancestors rested, they enjoyed plenty of downtime, but they weren’t sedentary in the way we modern humans are. Sedentary behavior is an individual health problem, a public health problem, and an economic problem. The cost of medical care and lost productivity due to overly sedentary modern lives reaches the tens of billions of dollars every year. Today I’m going to outline some of the specific ways being sedentary hurts us and what we can do about it.
Being Sedentary Increases Disease and Mortality Risk
The data from large, long-term epidemiological studies tell a clear and consistent story: folks who are more sedentary in their day-to-day lives are at greater risk for just about every chronic disease. They also die sooner. It’s as simple as that… mostly. Some analyses do suggest that among the most active folks, those who get at least an hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day, the risks of being sedentary are attenuated.2 I’ll return to that provocative finding later. For everyone else, there is a clear relationship between sedentary behavior, chronic disease, and shorter lifespan.
For example, a 2012 meta-analysis of studies with almost 800,000 combined participants found that the more sedentary you are, the greater your risk for suffering a cardiovascular event, succumbing to a cardiovascular event, or dying, period.3 The researchers went on to say that “the reported associations were largely independent of physical activity, adding further weight to the concept of sedentary behaviour [sic] being a distinct behaviour in its own right.”
That same meta-analysis found a particularly strong relationship between being sedentary and developing type 2 diabetes, as did a 2015 meta-analysis of studies that likewise controlled for physical activity level.4
The Cancer Prevention Study II (CPS-II) Nutrition Cohort study followed over 127,000 adults for two decades and tracked all manner of health outcomes.5 To understand the effect of being sedentary, the researchers compared people who sat for less than three hours a day at the beginning of the study to those who admitted to sitting for six or more hours per day. Controlling for variables such as alcohol use, smoking, diet, and chronic health issues, the more sedentary group had higher rates of, in the researchers’ own words:
“…mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease (including coronary heart disease and stroke-specific mortality), cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, suicide, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonitis due to solids and liquids, liver, peptic ulcer and other digestive disease, Parkinson disease, Alzheimer disease, nervous disorders, and musculoskeletal disorders.”
That’s quite a list. And once again, those findings remained after controlling for how much moderate to vigorous physical activity participants were getting.
Being Sedentary Creates Energy Surplus
One of the proposed mechanisms by which sedentary behavior increases disease risk is that it can lead to an energy surplus—eating more calories than you expend—which in turn leads to hyperglycemia, hyperinsulinemia, and insulin resistance.
Of course, not everyone who is sedentary also overeats. Researchers have tested whether folks who don’t overeat are protected against some of the negative consequences of being sedentary. At least in the short term, the answer seems to be yes.6 Being sedentary still carries risks, but being sedentary plus overeating is particularly dangerous. Possibly, this is why watching television is particularly detrimental. Researchers have long known that TV time is even more strongly associated with chronic disease and mortality than other types of sedentary behavior. The running theory is that people are also more likely to mindlessly snack in front of the television than, say, driving or sitting and reading a book.
There’s another issue to consider here. When you’re in an energy surplus, you’re also missing out on the benefits of being in a caloric deficit. In a new paper, scientists from Howard University coined the term “cellular exercise” to describe the cellular adaptations that result from hormetic stressors like, you guessed it, caloric restriction.7 Sitting plus overeating equals not getting the cellular exercise you need to thrive.
It Means You’re Not Walking
I won’t belabor this point because I’ve extolled the benefits of walking so often on the blog. Suffice it to say you should be walking as much as possible, as often as possible, on different surfaces. Walking is our birthright, and an imperative, as bipedal primates.
If walking isn’t already part of your daily repertoire, that’s priority number one. Start with this beginner’s walking routine.
Sitting Changes Your Biomechanics
My friend Katy Bowman has been hammering this home for years. Sitting and lying down put prolonged and undesirable loads on certain parts of the body, while others are underused. This leads to all manner of dysfunction. I’ll let Katy take it from here:
I’d break the problem of sitting into two categories. On one hand, there is the stillness. You are not moving so all of the systems in your body that depend on movement and the gravitational load to get things flowing aren’t happening.
But then there is the second piece that I like to call the geometrical problem. So it is not just that you are still; it is that when you are still, you are always assuming exactly the same position. You adapt to what you do most frequently and so you have all these changes in your physical structure like the length of your muscles, some getting longer, some getting shorter. You have lower input of what your weight is as far as your bones are concerned, so your bone density adjusts accordingly.
You (Might) Miss Out on the Benefits of Exercise
As I mentioned, exercise and sedentary behavior are separate constructs. You can be high on both, low on both, or any combination in between. That’s why many studies attempt to control for physical activity and take it out of the equation.
As I also mentioned, high levels of exercise seem to negate, or perhaps balance out, some of the harm of being sedentary. Researchers conducted a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies (ranging from 2 to 18 years of follow-up) covering more than a million adult subjects looking at the impact of sedentary behavior on all-cause mortality.8 Here’s what they found:
For individuals who got physical activity in excess of 35.5 MET hours per week (about 60 to 75 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity per day or more), it didn’t seem to matter how much they sat during the day. Sitting for 8 hours per day was no different than sitting for less than 4 hours. Everyone’s mortality risk was relatively low in this group.
The less exercise people got, the more being sedentary hurt in an almost linear fashion. By far, the worst combination was low exercise (only a few minutes of moderate exercise per day) and excessive sitting (more than 8 hours per day). Not surprising.
When they looked at TV time specifically, watching more than 5 hours per day was associated with higher mortality no matter how much a person exercised. As expected, though, the combination of inactivity plus more television watching was especially pernicious.
I’m not going to lie, I was surprised to dig into these findings. This high exercise-high sedentary group is the epitome of the “active couch potato” I’ve long warned against. These are your hardcore gym goers and endurance athletes who train hard then rest hard—maybe too hard, I believed. These newer data would suggest that at least where all-cause mortality is concerned, that pattern might not be as bad as once thought.
I’m willing to be wrong, but I’m not entirely swayed yet. At the end of the day, I always look at everything through a Primal, evolutionary lens, and that pattern still seems to represent an evolutionary mismatch. It may be that the effects take longer to show up or that they show up in ways other than mortality.
I also wonder about the possibility of healthy user bias here. If you’re doing 90 minutes of exercise and sitting for 8 hours, that still leaves 14.5 hours of time for sleeping and “other.” What happens during that other time matters. I’d venture to say that people who are this dedicated to exercise are, on average, probably more dedicated to other healthy practices.
Still, these findings suggest that if you’re going to sit on your butt for a third of your life, you’d better make sure you’re getting plenty of exercise too.
The Solution
You know what I’m going to say here: sit less, move more.
To be clear, I’m still not advocating for a lifestyle where you hit the gym for 90 minutes and then lie on the couch for the rest of the day. That’s not the way we are designed to live, period. Lift heavy things, yes. Sprint sometimes. Walk a lot. When you do sit or lie down, get up and switch positions frequently. Sprinkle microworkouts throughout the day.
Make a concerted effort to move during your workday. Create an active workstation. Give yourself various sitting, leaning, and standing options. Sitting on different surfaces—tall stools, backless benches, exercise balls—imparts different biomechanical stress. Go all in and invest in an underdesk treadmill or cycler.
I’m not saying don’t rest. Most people probably need more time to disconnect and recover from the stresses of the modern world than they’re currently getting. I’m saying don’t sit or lie for hours at a time unmoving. Instead of flopping on the couch after a long day of sitting at your desk and in your car, make your rest nurturing and restorative, and you’ll be much better off for it.
Sunshine, beach days, camping, cookouts
Most people probably assume that the problem with a sedentary lifestyle is that you aren’t moving. (Yes, I see the tautology there.) Every minute, every hour, spent sitting at your desk or lounging on the couch is time you aren’t walking, lifting heavy things, or 
