PALEO JAY Smoothie Cafe

The number one reason that people are not healthy is not because they don’t know what to do, or how to do it.  Sure, knowing how to properly exercise is crucial, and knowing what you should eat (and not eat!) to be healthy is as well- so, if you don’t know how to do either one, study up.    Read on www.paleojay.com on both subjects, and get my ebook on Perfectly Paleo Exercise, complete with all the links you need to understand how to exercise naturally, ancestrally, and completely.  This won’t take all that long, and then you will know what to eat, and how to properly exercise.  Of course, you could study both subjects for the rest of your life and learn new things continually.  But, the basics are always the same!  Real food, not processed man-made crap, pastured meats and dairy, wild seafood.  Get rid of grains in your diet, and maximize your sleep to at least 8 hours per night.  Cultivate your “tribe” of friends, family, church members, work friends, neighbors.  Exercise daily, and experience nature as well on a daily basis.   But, now that you know what to do- what is the obstacle?  I’m sure you know it:  it is doing it, you have to follow through.  Walk the walk, not merely talk the talk!  This is what is really hard for folks to do.  Knowledge is indeed power- but only if you actually do what you know you should be doing!    So, you need to make health a habit!  And so, for the next few weeks, I want you to prioritize your health habits.  Make sure to sleep 8 hours per night, and then to exercise the next morning.  Do this every single day for 21 days!  This is the minimum amount of time most people need to create a new habit.    You will find if you get the sleep you need, and have the discipline to exercise each and every morning, eating a proper paleo diet will just seem natural, since you are so conscious of the health of your body during this time.  So really do it- sleep and wake with natural exercise in front of the TV waiting for you each morning, to help you to gradually awaken your body and mind, stretching and invigorating your entire body in a methodical, pleasant way.    I guarantee that, at the end of three weeks, or 21 days, you will have become addicted to feeling great.  Or at least semi-addicted!  For it turns out that 21 days is the minimum time needed to create a habit in your life.  To create a rock-solid, hard core near positive addiction to health and exercise it takes 66 days!  At this point, you will have created a lifelong habit that will be a part of your very being, something that you will no longer be able to imagine living without.

The older I get (and I turn 66 on Friday April 6, so I know what old is), the more I see protecting your joints as crucial.  Muscle can be built, even tendons and ligaments can be gradually strengthened, but the joints are in need of maintenance which they rarely get!  When we are young, we literally take our joints for granted, and beat them up exercising to build muscle, compete in sports, and otherwise propel our bodies around.    This is all fine, but it points out the old adage that ‘youth is wasted on the young’.  If I was young again, I would do what I do now:  first thing upon rising in the morning, I put my ALL of my major joints through a brief warmup.  I do it right in the bathroom, so as not to disturb my wife.  (I am an early riser).  I start with just stretching my arms upwards, as high as I can, one arm after another.  I rotate my head on my neck each way similarly.  Then, I put my hands on my hips, and rotate a few times in each direction for the hip joint.  4 to 5 reps, easily, just to get the synovial fluid going in the joints.    Next I put my hands of my knees, and rotate them in each direction.  Then, I do the same for my elbow joints and wrist joints (I do them at the same time), elbow joints, shoulder and hips together, one quarter squats, and another easy twisting motion.  This whole thing takes maybe 2 or 3 minutes- I will post a video to show you how it’s done.  Easy to show, hard to describe.   The beauty of this is not only does it start your joints with an easy warmup, it also wakes you completely up from head to toe!  No more groggy mornings until you get your coffee.    I used to lift heavy weights, and now realize that was a mistake- especially for the joints!  Lifting later at a really slow cadence (Superslow ala Ken Hutchins) was a huge improvement, but still too much, and unnecessary.  The weights were less, but still damaging to the joints.    Now, and for well over a decade, I do bodyweight exercise along with isometrics and ‘virtual resistance’, which is putting the body through a self-resisted protocol of complete motion.  The resistance is self generated in this, and is the key to not only building and maintaining muscle, but also in rehabbing damaged joints from sports and weight lifting injuries.  It took me a little while, but now my joints are perfectly healthy, with all of my knee and shoulder joint injuries healed!  You can do this as well.   The other key thing I recommend doing daily is stretching, methodically.  It doesn’t have to be yoga, but gentle stretching is essential for your health!  You need to get on the floor, and I do it mid-way in my morning workout.  I don’t want to explain it in words, but again will include a video. 

Here at PaleoJay’s Smoothie Cafe, I try to usually have kind of a large, world-view of things.  As opposed to my other podcast, Paleo Quick Tip of the Day, where the goal is mostly to convey a quick idea or strategy to improve health, fitness, and wellness overall.    And that is how my latest focus here is on worldwide events, rather than on one-on-one ideas of paleo living.  For I have come more and more to believe that a Big Government, GLOBALIST elite view of the world, our nation, and and of the people that make up our world is the biggest single threat to both our health, and our very LIVES that exists today!   I think a sparsely populated, natural landscape is vital for the health and wellness of a people.  There needs to be ample room for wildlife to coexist with humanity in symbiosis, and to achieve this the natural habitat (woods, trees, clear streams and rivers) needs to be preserved, nurtured, and enhanced.  Also, too many people is a strong deterrent to having such an environment!   In the United States and Canada, along with Australia and western Europe, such a balance has been achieved and maintained for a long while.  Up until recently, when misguided, leftist, big government elitists  have begun their great experiment- where they take vast numbers of uneducated people, people of different races and with totally anti-freedom western world views- and begun importing them into countries that certainly don’t need them, and for the majority of those that live there, do not want them!   Thus “great experiment” is well underway, having put millions each year of people into countries that have no need of them.  This is big, left-wing, Marxist inspired politicians that are doing this, in Germany, England, France, Norway, Sweden, Canada and the USA.  It is insidious, and being done against the will of the majority of their own countries citizens- but then, this is how the left works.  Big Government decisions are made for political expediency, not the overall good.  The overall good is done on the local level, as was envisioned by the founding fathers of America- you know, those ‘dead white males’ that are now held up as evil monsters?  Because some of them owned slaves, back when every country on the face of the earth owned slaves??   And nowadays, to be considered a racist is to be considered worse than being a murderer!  Ridiculous- if I believe one breed of dog does better at something than another, am I a dog-racist?  No, just a realist.  But- get ready for it- some races of humans are better at certain things than others.  Common sense, really:  Why do blacks dominate the NBA, and many other sports?  Because they have evolved in ways that make them better at those types of things.   And why are Asians so good at things like engineering? 

No- but it sure helps!    The hierarchy in my mind to get, attain, and keep really good health is first to make sure your nutrition is good and wholesome, and this includes getting pure water.  This is the prime directive of animals the world over- get good nutrition!    After that, surprisingly to most, is getting quality sleep.  Sleep is right up there with shelter- it does for your body and brain, spirit and outlook just what nutrition does- it enables you to stay alive, and to not only suffer along, barely making it day to day, but to thrive.  We are meant to thrive on this earth, and in a natural state we would, without the intrusions of governments and other rulers that control us and don’t allow us to run our own lives.    So, since the food we take in is central to our health, we should strive for the most nutritious food we can find.  Nutrient dense foods, foods that are so packed with the many vitamins, high quality protein, good fats, and plentiful anti-oxidants we need to be super healthy.  And, right up there with super healthy foods such as pastured beef liver and wild caught sardines is a blender made smoothie!  The state of the art blender to use is the long-running Vitamix, but there are others that will get the job done as well.   The advantage of a blended smoothie such as this is that all the vegetable and fruit used is in it- all the fiber, and all the nutrients as well.  Cooking can destroy some nutrients, although it can also make others more bioavailable.  So you want raw veggies and berries, along with the cooked ones you also consume.  Both are valuable, and necessary!   How do you make such a smoothie?  Here is a link to a post on www.paleojay.com that I did some time ago: http://www.paleojay.com/search?q=paleo+smoothie      Not much has changed, although I make minor changes to the ingredients, which I list at this link: http://www.paleojay.com/2011/07/paleo-quick-start-smoothie-ingredient.html   You can copy me exactly, or change up some of the ingredients to suit your own taste and goals.  But the basics of making a quality blended smoothie never change- some healthy liquids like full fat kefir, green tea, and coconut milk, green veggies, a raw pastured egg or two, citrus and berries, spices like turmeric and ginger, and vitamin D liquid.  It kind of depends on what you have on hand, and what agrees with you as an individual.   After you’ve fulfilled your nutritional needs in such a manner, you can add in some real foods you have prepared around your family table.  And that takes care of your last needs, those of family and community!  Your TRIBE.  Get toget

We in the ancestral community are all trying to make our lives as natural, as paleo-like as possible!  No grains, no sugar, ditch the processed fast foods and other bad, hyper-palatable, neolithic (and therefore, in my mind- decadent- foods)!    But how are we to do this, with our families for God’s sake, as we are all stuck in Suburbia, or even worse- in big city urban nightmare areas?    Short answer:  You Can’t!   I don’t mean to be a downer here, a complete pessimist.  But, realistically, if you live in a big city, and you have children, you have learned a few realities by now.  1. Big City schools are awful, snake-pits of liberal disinformation and delusion 2. Crime is off the charts, with the bigger and more Democrat-run the city, the worse the corruption and deceit   I’m not being political here, although I do have strong political ideas.  This is just truth-telling.  Big cities are run by Democrats now in the USA, and they are ALL very corrupt.    Most of you have already voted with your feet- you have taken a small step away, into the suburbs surrounding big cities.  This made sense, back in the 50’s and 60’s, when most jobs were within those big cities!  Just a short commute, by train was best, and you could go to your office, get lunch in that (back then) safe city, with beat cops patrolling on foot, and short-circuiting crime before it happened.  (How, you might ask?  Why common sense reality checking- profiling).   But, with the huge lie that is Political Correctness, this is NOT allowed anymore!  Police are not really even empowered to arrest criminals anymore, because, (and I quote)- we “can’t arrest our way out of this!”  This is parroted by every liberal big city official, because the demographics of their constituents have changed to the point where almost none of them actually work for a living anymore, being on the dole, or else they are illegals, criminals, or both.   The suburbs still thrive, but at a huge price!  To escape living in the corrupt, horrible, actually savage big cities, with awful, below even substandard schools, police, and every other government service- even though taxes have become confiscatory on productive people- people are willing to pay anything to live in areas that are crime free, almost totally safe, and with good schools free of rampant violence.  Anything!   And that ‘anything’ is a really, really LOT!    Because everyone will literally pay anything for such properties, the price has gone through the roof.  Houses that were 40,000 in 1960, like the one I grew up in; why, just the lots are worth about a million dollars!  1/4 acre lots, nothing huge here.    These suburbs are ‘livable’, I will grant that.

Let’s say you are a very fit person, someone who has exercised pretty much your whole life, and definitely for the past 10 years or so.  You do resistance exercise, aerobic or cardio as well, and you stretch religiously.  I will say that you need isometrics!   And, on the other hand, let’s say you are a elderly person who has never exercised much, and definitely not in the past 10 years.  You really need isometrics!   How can each of these diametrically opposed situations have the same solution?  The answer is simple- isometrics will enhance your fitness, dramatically, in a very large way, no matter what your fitness level.   Very dramatic strength increases can be realized, very quickly, and with very little risk or danger, simply by doing a simple series of isometrics regularly!  No special equipment is needed, or even a change of clothing, and it can be done anywhere, anytime, in very little time.    Isometrics have been shown to dramatically lower blood pressure, with no other changes in lifestyle.  Also, the strength increases also are beneficial for joints, strengthening the tendons and ligaments along with the muscles themselves.  Weight lifting pretty much bypasses the tendons and ligaments, concentrating on the bellies of the muscles first, which makes you more prone to injury.   Often, it is said that doing isometrics at a single angle only increases strength at that one angle.   Although technical true, if you simply do the same exercise at three angles- the start, the mid-point, and the near end-point of the motion, you effectively strengthen the entire strength curve!  I have found that a demanding, very effective isometric protocol takes about 10 minutes, total, to cover the whole body!   Here’s how you do it:  You will need a web cable, like a moving strap, at least 15 feet long.  About 2” wide is ideal; I use two moving straps I had that are each about 12 feet long.  I lay them on the floor, overlapping about a foot atop one another, and I step on the overlap, which locks them together.  Then, I grasp each strap, and run them overhead on each side, to where my hands are just above my shoulders, as if I am doing a military press with two dumbbells.  Then, I push upwards at about 80% or so of my power, for about 5 seconds.  Rest.  Repeat, for 6 seconds. Rest.  Repeat again for 7 seconds.  This is the protocol: 5,6, and then 7 seconds for each exercise in three positions.    Next, I just lower my arms to my sides, still holding the straps, and do the same thing with curls: bottom, middle, and top extension, 5,6,7 seconds, at each position.  After that, I do bent over rows by bending over with the straps still held in each hand, and do all three positions from there, 5,6,7.   

Really- make your own supplements!    It’s not hard, and it will save not only your health, but money too.  The secret is to replace or at least add to one meal each day a glass of a smoothie that you make yourself.  I call mine the paleo green smoothie, and I have made it for quite a few years- changing up the ingredients from time to time, depending on what foods I have handy in my refrigerator and freezer.    For, make no mistake: good, healthy foods are the very best “supplements” you can consume!  You simply take wonderful ancestral types of foods, and combine them in a high speed blender to make the healthiest beverage ever.  Let’s go over what I made today, to last me for at least 4 days:   I always start with a full fat kefir, since it is a great probiotic, and is liquid.  I never measure, just going by intuition.  About a cups worth or more to start.  Then, I add in Vitamin D liquid, ginger powder, turmeric powder, and often kelp powder.  I keep them in spice jars near my blender, so it just takes a moment to shake them all in.   Then, I carry my Vitamix canister around to my refrigerator, and add a couple of raw pastured eggs, apple cider vinegar- just a healthy splash (another great probiotic), some kelp sprouts I had in there I added today, and then I open the freezer.   I add in a healthy pour of California Mix, which is widely available in big frozen bags, and then some greens- today, I had some kelp that I had frozen before so it wouldn’t go bad when I had too much of the fresh stuff.  Then, I added in some frozen cantaloupe, and some mixed frozen berries, along with 1/2 of a banana my wife had left from her own breakfast.  Oh, I also threw in one beet- I discard the greens, since they are loaded with oxalates and are to be avoided.  I kind of ‘forage’ for stuff in my fridge, since I hate for good food to go to waste!   It wasn’t quite as liquid as I’d have liked, so I added in some green tea from my thermos, and blended it up.  I drank a healthy glass, while I poured the rest of the smoothie into clean canning jars that I keep just for that purpose, and stored it all in the fridge.   The whole process takes less than 10 minutes, and is quite enjoyable, since I listen to a podcast or music while I do it- and then- I have my supplements ready for the week.  Much better than pills or potions, and easily obtainable at the grocery store.    The one thing you do need to have is a good quality, high speed blender- your old $20 cheapie is not going to cut it here.  Vitamix is best, but there are others that will work- I’ll leave it up to you to choose the right one for you and your budget.   Just remember one thing, though: a good blender will last you for at least 10 years- and that’s 10 years of excellent, health producing smoothies!  Pro-rated, it is really a minimal investment overall.

I hope you have heard of grounding.  It is quite crucial to health, and yet almost unknown to most people, even those of the paleo persuasion.  It may sound ‘out there’ to you if you’ve never heard of it, but trust me, it is quite real, and can make a huge difference in your health, both physical and mental!   We are electrical creatures- our various bodily functions happen with electrical connections and stimulus.  Our hearts are functional only through electrical stimulus, as our all of our other circuitry in the body- especially, the brain is complicated memory circuit, and when off-kilter, it can go into dementia, Parkinson’s, and other mood and regulatory problems.  It is as if your brain is ‘shorting out’.   The main wake up call of most of the paleo/ancestral lifestyle is to bring us back to basics!  When we started making plastic and rubber soles to our footwear, we cut ourselves off from the grounding of contacting mother earth.  This, along with the fact that most of us started living unnatural, cut-off from nature kinds of jobs, sitting at climate controlled desks, barely moving throughout our days- well, we are just asking for trouble, evolutionarily speaking.   Just as we need to get vitamin D by getting out in the sun, and exercising daily, along with walking in Nature to keep our sanity and health- we need to be in regular contact with the earth, with the planet, by actually grounding ourselves to the actual soil itself.  Barefoot walking and running, on the earth, grass, or sand accomplishes this very well in Spring, Summer and Fall- but what about here in the north country, when snow and ice cover the ground?   It’s actually easy to fix this problem, even in Winter.  If you wear leather soled shoes, boots, or moccasins, you are grounded every time you are outside.  But such footwear is actually very uncommon nowadays, although you can find it if you look online for grounding or earthing shoes.  It tends to be pricey, though, and you definitely won’t find it at Wal-Mart!    Here is an easy work around: today, for instance, I hiked around my woods with ski poles on the snow.  Although my shoes were not earthing shoes, every time a planted my ski poles, I was grounded- again and again and again!  And you can also ground yourself easily from time to time, simply by grasping a tree trunk.  Or a pole in the ground, whatever.  Or, if you have a concrete floored basement, walking barefoot on that can accomplish the same thing.  It’s not that hard, but it is super important, whatever anyone else tells you.   Most of humanity today, at least in western countries, are completely cut off from contact with the earth!  They wear plastic-soled shoes constantly, live in totally artificial man-made environments, and also eat grains and sugars almost exclusively, along with grain fed/sick animal products.  Even the nutrients to feed their food are from unnatural

What do I mean by saying that statins are a symbol?  Well, I mean that the widespread, in fact almost universal prescribing of such a drug is symbolic of what has happened to modern medicine. Medications are routinely prescribed to patients, whether or not that medication will actually help the person or not!   Let’s look at the case of statins: if you are a man of any age without existing heart disease, statins won’t extend your life span.  And if you are over the age of 80, with or without heart disease, there is no benefit to be had from a statin.  In addition, although the chances of you benefiting from a statin are quite slight, the chances of bad side effects are quite great.  10% of statin users are inflicted with muscle damage and pain, and there is also risk of kidney damage as the breakdown of muscle tissue overloads the kidneys with deteriorated muscle tissue in a condition known as rhabdomyolysis.   Personally, I know how important muscle tissue is for health, particularly as a person ages.  When you see older people hunched over, barely able to walk or even get up out of a chair, much less off of the ground or a floor- this is because of sarcopenia, which is just a simple term for muscle wasting as people age.  But I am here to tell you that muscle wasting is not only something to avoid at all costs, but you certainly don’t want to cause it to happen faster by taking a statin!   For women, especially women over the age of 60- statins have not been shown to be of any benefit whatsoever.  In fact, a higher cholesterol level amounts older women seems to be very protective in terms of overall longevity, rather than the reverse.  Also, for women, a 9% increased risk for diabetes is another side effect of statins.  Men also get an increased risk of diabetes, but more in the area of 6%.    While there are some rare instances when a statin is appropriate, the key word there is rare.  For the vast majority of us, the risks are not worth the small advantage- especially in light of the fact that, while statins do lower the “magical” cholesterol numbers- this works out into no longer life expectancy.  So, really, what is the point?   And that is why I think that statins themselves are a symbol- a symbol of the vast overuse of medications, for pretty much everyone, all the time.  Medications that just treat symptoms (like a high number on the cholesterol chart), but deliver no increases in health or wellness.  Depression medications, stomach acid reducing meds, drugs for this, drugs for that- overall, I would estimate that over 95% are either totally unneeded and very expensive (hence big pharma’s vested interest in having a lot be sold).  Also- usually the side effects are worse than the symptoms of the disease they are supposed to treat.   In light of all of this, I am starting to think that the traditional Rod of Asclepius, which is a staff surrounded by  a twisting serpent, is starting to really be a good representation of modern me

Once you get to a certain age, and for most that seems to be the early 50’s or so, if you have lived a Standard American Diet and lifestyle as most do- you will start to fall apart!  You will have aches and pains; often in the form of migraine headaches, acid reflux, IBD, and increasingly pain in the joints and spine.   To solve this, it is definitely NOT a matter of which heavy duty drugs to take, or even of going to a good chiropractor to get your back cracked or adjusted.  And surgeries and NSAID drugs like ibuprofen, Tylenol, aspirin and the like are also NOT the answer.  All of these commonplace strategies are short term stopgaps at best, and all arrive at the place of steadily worsening health and well-being rather than healing and wellness.   First off- any drug- any drug will wreak havoc on your gut lining, and intensify your future pain and suffering.  Guaranteed!  You need a long term strategy, something you do each and every day that will definitely fine you vastly improved in every way, and with a truly healthy and happy body and mind.   Now, some chiropractors are great- they guide you into a paleo, ancestral lifestyle just as I attempt to do with good advice and counsel.  Clean up your diet, cut out the bread and sugar, exercise regularly, meditate and walk barefoot, eat real, God-made foods rather than processed hyper-palatable crap.  Then, they usually will adjust your back as well, and you will think all is well.  And it may be, for a little while…   The thing is, chiropractic care is a transitory, stop-gap type of treatment that is very temporary, and helps you feel better after having abused your body with the wrong kind of exercise (heavy weights), or no exercise (poor posture, deteriorating muscle tone), bad stress, and a lack of walking outdoors in nature.   Poor sleep is also contributory to all of this.    Just as surgery and drugs are not a long term answer, neither are chiropractic adjustments on a regular basis.  For one, they are quite expensive, not to mention unnatural!  How many ancient humans had their backs adjusted on a regular basis?  They didn’t need them to be adjusted, because they adjusted them themselves on a daily basis, just as now you will!  You just need to adopt a few simple habits of health, and you will self-adjust yourself on a daily basis, and your gut will gradually heal, rendering your body to be as healthy as it can be.   There are two things I’d like you to add into your daily regimen.  Simple stretching, primarily on a mat on the floor, some simple exercises mixed in with the stretching, and a warm cup of salted bone broth to sip while you work.  Really- this little pleasurable addition to your morning routine can completely revamp your health, your joints, and eliminate your aches and pains permanently.   When you awaken, (making sure that you get a good 8 hours of sleep

OK, I mentioned last podcast that I had gotten a new tractor!  For anyone with an  acreage, anyone that has a small woods, a big lawn, and lots and lots of tasks that need to be performed on a regular basis- why then, you know just how important a tractor is to you.    My old tractor was pretty darn good, since I had finally upgraded from a gas powered lawn tractor to a compact utility tractor.  This is a huge distinction, since a gas powered tractor such as that, that the vast majority of large property owners have, is much, much less useful, strong, and overall powerful than a real, CUT- that is, a Compact Utility Tractor!  A CUT has a far bigger, heavier frame, much larger tires, a 3 point hitch for all sorts of useful implements, and most importantly of all- it has a diesel engine.    A diesel engine has much more torque, or useful pulling and other sorts of power, than a gas engine.  My little John Deere 650, still outside with the back blade and chains on for snow, is still running strong.  But, it only has 15 hp, which is pretty powerful when in the form of a diesel!  My new Kubota (both these machines are built in Japan, despite the green paint on the John Deere), has more than twice that much hp, is quite a bit larger, frame size wise, and the tires are huge in comparison.  It’s also much newer, orange (that’ll take some getting used to!), and- it has a big loader bucket on the front!   I’ve already experimented with the bucket, knocking over dead trees with it, pulling down big tree-sized branches that my old tractor couldn’t budge, and carrying firewood.  I spend time each day, walking my land and thinking about jobs I’ll do with it come spring in my woods.  Moving brush piles with the pallet loader, hauling firewood into orderly piles, and perhaps digging a small pond.  It is a huge boon to have that much useful power at my disposal, and doing various tasks will be a pure joy!   Now, wouldn’t you like to trade in your old body, that old gas or carbohydrate burning lawn tractor body that burns oil in the form aches and pains, and just doesn’t have that much useful power anymore?  Well, you can- just trade yourself in, by remaking yourself into a diesel compact utility tractor- a CUT!    First, you need to start fueling yourself like a diesel human.  You need to switch from running on glucose from carbs and sugars, and move into a ketogenic sort of diet.  This means low carbs, very little sugars, and plenty of protein and fats!  It will be a change, but within a few weeks your body can transform itself into a diesel machine, running on ketones rather than glucose.  You will rarely be hungry, and you will begin running on your stored body fat preferentially over the last bagel or piece of bread you just ate.  Your energy will quickly become unlimited, just like my tractor!   While you do this, I also want you to

One thing that I guarantee will change your life for the better is this: build movement, or exercise, into your day.  Each and every day!   The thing is that you if you get out of the habit, if you start saying to yourself: “Oh, I don’t want to just spend time ‘exercising’, just spinning my wheels- I want to accomplish things!”; why then, you are setting yourself up for an increasingly unhealthy life.  For the truth is, movement is life!   It really is.  Nothing living ever thrives, or even enjoys life, by just lying dormant.  When we move, when the blood rushes through our bodies, we feel alive and well- because we are!  Sitting is not only the new smoking- it is a kind of death, in a way, if done to excess.  Sleeping is wonderful for us, and sitting is also great, when done in moderation.  Sitting is a good posture for active reflection: for reading, contemplation, meditation, eating at the table with our ‘tribe’- all very good postures and activities.   Sitting in front of a screen, however- whether tv, computer, smart phone or ipad- this can become a type of bad hynosis, wasting our very lives.  Here is how to use a screen productively:  Exercise in front of the television!   I know, I’ve brought this up before, because it really works.  When I awake in the morning, I don’t think ‘what should I do first this morning’, and wander downstairs, make breakfast, and run off to work with maybe a little perfunctory stretching.  No, I awaken, after a good 8-9 hour night’s sleep, because that’s what I always plan for.  I go into the bathroom, and do some mobility exercises, getting the synovial fluid going in my elbow, knees, ankles, shoulder and spine to ready my body for its daily movement.  This mobility and stretching routine takes about 2-3 minutes, tops.   Then, downstairs I go, feeling wide awake and looking forward to: my program!Whether movie, tv show, Netflix or Amazon Prime- NOW is the only time I allow myself to watch!  I am literally champing at the bit to watch a great program that I have queued up and have ready.  Lately, I’ve been watching the last season of Longmire, just so you know.   This system works beautifully!  I almost never miss my morning workout, and my stretching, pushups, situps, and virtual resistance exercises done on my rebounder actually make my television viewing more intense than if I was just sitting like a lump.  I’m barefoot, alone, and it’s just me and the show- it’s wonderful really.   And this is every day.  Think of the shape you will be in, how much your bodily health would benefit if you exercised religiously and thoroughly- every single day!  Trust me: your health and wellness will go off the charts, straight upward

And so is chanca piedra, which I promised I would mention after my previous podcast about my kidney stone!   Now, these two items- bone broth and kidney stones are related, so stay tuned and I will explain.  I got my kidney stone from, I believe now, actually overdosing on spinach for years and years!  Contrary to popular belief, spinach has gotten a “halo of virtue”, and we all think it is nothing but loads of beneficial vitamins and minerals, all in a pretty green package.  But it also has oxalates, which are a chemical or ester that protects the spinach plant.  And the wheat plant, the rhubarb, the raspberry- in fact, many plants that we tend to regard as all good!    They’re not.  And if you, like me now, have ever experienced the utter pain of a kidney stone, you will realize that.  But in addition, this chemical, which is stored away in the form of calcium crystals throughout the body of those of us mammals that dare to eat the plant that contains them, can cause all sorts of pain and illness in the human body.    From joint pains, to tooth and bone density issues, to sleep troubles and digestive issues!  Oxalates are like gluten and gliaden- insidious, harmful, and hard to track or trace.  Kidney stones are just one of the more obvious contamination issues.  But I have two suggestions for you:   First- get rid of your kidney stone, if you have one, as fast as possible- pass by the urologist and the incredible pain and expense he will offer you, and order a bottle of chanca piedra for about $12.  Take a dropper full in each of the many, many glasses of water you should also be drinking to get rid of the dang thing, and hold on tight!   And above all, from now on go on a low oxalate diet!  I would drop spinach entirely, along with rhubarb, beets, and raspberries- oxalate levels in each of these are off the charts.  Of course, I hope you are already off of wheat, since that is also high in this poison as well as gluten.  And step two?   Heal your gut!  A leaky gut opens you to every disease under the sun, so get to healing it.  Bone Broth is the best tool for this that there is, helping to sooth, heal, and finally seal your gut lining- this is really job #1 in both health maintenance and health restoration!  As Hippocrates said so long ago: “All health begins in the gut.”  And it turns out he was right.   Once again, the best web site I have found on oxalates and their dangers is this one: https://sallyknorton.com/  Read through what she has to say, and take it to heart.  I have no affiliation with her whatsoever, but I recognize excellence and knowledge when I see and hear it, and Sally Norton has it. 

I’ll admit, this is a new one for me.  A new, and painful lesson, to be sure- I got a kidney stone!    Now, of course I had heard of kidney stones- my little brother actually had one a few years back, and went through a really painful, expensive operation to get it removed.  ‘But not me’, I thought- ‘I am always healthy, never need to get treated for anything, and prize my health beyond measure!  To this end, I always drink a daily Green Smoothie, with coconut milk (good), spices (good), cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower (good), along with kefir, apple cider vinegar, ginger root, and berries- all of which are good.    But I also put in either a big portion of raw spinach, or a beet and beet greens- sometimes both! I’ve been doing this for years and years…   Most of us think that any dark green is very healthy, indeed- I know I did.  I grew up with Popeye the Sailorman, who is ‘strong to the finish- when he eats his spinach- he’s Popeye the sailor man’.  Well, just add Popeye, one of my childhood heroes, to the list of authority figures like M.D.’s and medical clinics, left-wing politicians and others who are and always have been wrong.  (However well-meaning.)  But, it does turn out that kale is relatively low in oxalates, as are mustard greens!   As I already knew, plants are chemical warfare masters, coming up with things like phytic acid and gluten and gliadin, (among other toxic chemicals) that are loaded into wheat so that we mammals don’t eat them or their babies.  After all, since plants can’t run away or fight, chemical toxins are their only defense, really.  This is why wheat is so awful for us, particularly modern wheat.  But it is also why spinach and many other plants are also bad, because they are loaded with a chemical called an oxalate.   Nuts, beans, and peanuts are oxalate bombs- eat sparingly, along with your dark chocolate- after all, these things are treats- desserts, really- not a main food group!  And of course, grains are horrible, high sources of oxalate poisons, best eliminated entirely if possible.    Of course, I’d heard of oxalates- but I had never heard just how bad they really are, especially if you take in enough that your body cannot readily get rid of them- then, they form oxalate crystals, and unfortunately I eventually got one, right inside my right kidney.  It hurts something awful, too, but I’ve learned how to deal with that- I just keep completely hydrated, drinking mostly water, but also lemon water and cranberry juice- as long as I stay really hydrated, there is no pain.  I expect to pass the stone naturally- I will keep you posted.    The bad thing is, oxalates also do lots of other damage- to your teeth, to your gut lining (oh no-just like wheat!), to your bones, making them week- and also contributes to all kinds of symptoms that we normally ascribe to aging, and so they are largely ignored as “natural”.  They are not!  Headaches,

In this time of snowflakes, or those who cannot experience one moment of discomfort in their lives, one of the worst trends, health-wise, is that of folks relying- actually worshipping medical clinics and standard doctors!    I have nothing against M.D.’s, they are wonderful to have around when you have stopped a bullet or been run over by a bus.  They are trained, since the Civil War (which, by the way snowflakes, was a war where white men fought and died to free black slaves), to save men that have been traumatized dramatically, and help them to survive, ultimately to return to the battle field.  Really, this is when modern western medicine really got in its stride.  Emergency medicine!   But, in terms of staying healthy, getting healthy, or regaining health- sorry, it is all up to you.    I think this is the whole disconnect, right there.  Nowadays, people want to think that medical doctors and clinics can save them, literally.  Save them from themselves!  The vast majority of people do not want to change what they eat, and their lifestyle, one bit.  They want to continue to eat cereal for breakfast, but they will use skim milk, since that will save them.  (Low fat)   They also want to eat fast food for lunch, and sometimes they will eat a salad with the supplied soybean rancid seed oil dressing, washing it down with an artificially sweetened beverage, and having a bun or some other GMO crap topped with loads of more rancid seed oil, in the form of margarine. (Because it’s low fat, don’t you know)    Supper can be a thick crust, Chicago style pizza, since you have been “good” all day, eating low fat, and watching those calories!  You are starving, so you eat the whole thing- after all, you walked in your cushioned sneakers at the mall for a good 30 minutes this morning.  You stay up late, watching CNN and feeling virtuous, since you are doing so well- and you can’t wait for your doctor’s appointment at the clinic next week, since you know you will do so well, since you follow all of their recommendation to the letter!  You just want to ask your doctor why you can’t lose weight; you just keep yo-yoing up and down- and you have constant headaches, and then there is your acid reflux that is becoming chronic.  You are so depressed as well…   What a surprise at the clinic when the doctor raises alarm bells- your health appears to be horrible!  Your triglycerides are sky high, and he recommends a statin, high blood pressure medication- and- oh yes, it’s time for a colonoscopy, along with a series of tests that need to be scheduled, since you are over 50 now, and everyone over 50 needs lots of medications and continual tests, since otherwise you can never stay alive.   You go home with your bags and bags of pills you got from the pharmacy.  You feel virtuous!  You are doing everything right!  You eat lots and LOTS of whole grains, not too much white flo