PALEO JAY Smoothie Cafe

pjsc 119  Sleep Yourself Lean and Healthy The notion of getting enough sleep seems so corny, and so simple that it can’t really be that important, can it?   “I am so busy, both at work and at home, that I can’t sleep more than 6 hours a night!” say most people nowadays! But if you are waking up early to work out, and then working out again after work to “burn calories” and get thinner, you are doing things very wrong...If you don’t get at least 8 hours of real sleep per night, you are raising your stress hormone levels of cortisol, and increasing your chances of becoming diabetic, hypertensive, and obese. Your risk of heart disease and mental disorders increase dramatically as well!  So, the notion of getting a good night’s sleep seems too “inconvenient”, you’d better reconsider.  Good, restful sleep is more important than exercise, and even more important than a proper, paleo type of diet!   For one thing, if you stay up late and get up early, you will simply have more time to eat.  Also, when sleep deprived, the ghrelin and leptin hormones will get out of whack, and  Ghrelin and leptin are hormones that hold the key to your appetite and weight loss. They signal hunger and the feeling of fullness. If these hormones are out of balance, your ability to lose weight is nearly impossible because it is very difficult to fight a strong urge to eat. You cannot overcome biology. Doesn’t that sound ominous?  Well, it is!  So, I hope I have convinced you that late nights out or watching TV aren’t “harmless” to your health goals.   So, you have become convinced, by the badgering of PaleoJay, to start getting a good 8-9 hours of sleep per night.  Good for you!  This will be a game-changer, a life changer really.  Not only will your body become a much more efficient fat burner, your appetite will decrease, and your mood and energy level will increase.  A desire for productive exercise will follow as sleep restores your mind and bodily processes.  Most people don’t even realize how much better they could feel on a daily basis, if they only got enough sleep!   It’s like the paleo diet and lifestyle itself- once you really thing about it, it is so common sense that it is undeniable: Processed foods, loaded with sugar and artificial fats are not healthy Altered grains, loaded with tons of gluten are toxic Produce sprayed with toxic chemicals is not good for us Never walking or exercising leads to a sick, debilitated and weak body Nutrient rich foods will make a strong, healthy, lean body Who would argue with any of these statements??  The only ones who do are those with a moneymaking agenda: The Federal Government, which is in the business of selling grains, worldwide, and so has a vested interest in ignoring the health implications of consuming such a toxic foodstuff. Big Pharmaceutical and Medicine, which is in the position of making huge profits by making us all sick (from eating these toxic grains, vegetable oil grains, processed foods (loaded with grain products like high fructose corn syrup), and other sugars. And Big Food corporations, which make billions selling substandard, nutrient poor processed foods like breakfast cereals and snack foods made from... grains and sugars and vegetable oil crap!) And so, add one more onto the paleo, ancestral list:   8-9 hours of sleep per night is a NECESSITY! So, follow the advice of me, and your great grandparents- Eat real food, natural God made food, exercise in nature, and get a good night’s sleep each night!   “But Jay, Jay- how do I do that- get a good night’s sleep I mean?  I just can’t sleep that long, or that soundly!” Well, grasshopper, I have an some answers to that, and some will sound unconventional to you, but they are all true, and proven, so please do them for your own sake: Get the television and any other electronics out of your bedroom!  NEVER watch TV in bed- the bed is for sleeping, it is sacrosanct.  If you have night lights, make sure they are RED, as th

pqtd 98  Wake up and work out  That sounds a little simplistic, doesn’t it?  Well, it is, and that’s a big part of its beauty: if you work out first thing in the morning, there is no decision to be made!  You get up, and then you work out... You don’t have to plan just when you will work out, just what exercises you will do that day- nothing at all!  You just need a plan in your head:  Here’s mine! On Mondays I do virtual resistance exercise, on a rebounder as I gently bounce away, in front of the tv- either news or more likely a Netflix program.  I keep a cup of coffee laced with coconut oil by my side for occasional sipping.  Very relaxing, but by the end I am lathered with sweat, and all my muscles are engorged with blood and pleasantly tired.  Maybe 45 minutes of so total time. Tuesdays are one overall total body set of virtual resistance for each and every body part, with quite a big of stretching on the floor.  Then, I superset high volume straight legged sit ups, pushups, hindu squats, and hindu pushups.  Repeat this superset about 2 times. Wednesdays I do Monday’s program! Thursdays I do high volume sets of pushups with raised legs on the Perfect Pushups rotating handles, with regular grip, wide grip, and narrow grips- then, repeat at least 5 times.  I follow with side planks, super setted with ab wheel pushups.  A big strength day! Fridays are the same as Monday and Wednesday, except I finish up with self resisted chest, arm, and back resistance exercises. Saturday is a repeat of the Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday program! Sunday is my biggest workout of the week, with handing leg raises, pistol squats with the gymnastic rings, pushups, flies and rows on the rings, hack squats, pullups and dips for multiple sets.  I also do a couple sets of kettlebell swings for high reps- these are like sprinting in the Winter months! My point it this- I never have to think about what to do, or when to do it- I just do it!  You don’t have to do exactly what I do, but you have to have a program, a rough outline of what to do, and then you can just follow through, on auto-pilot if you will.  There is no decision to be made- it is just like taking a shower later, and shaving, and brushing your hair and eating lunch- it’s all just part of your day! And the very best part is, after the first 45 minutes or so of your day, everything else is just down hill!  Easy peasey.   A good workout, hitting the entire body, with stretching and  the circulatory system included, leaves you feeling just glowing and energized, with a feeling that you have already conquered the day, so you might just as well go on to accomplish more!  And you don’t need to keep in the back of your mind that you somehow need to fit in a workout later... because you’ve already done it. Although, this morning post workout feeling is so addictive that you may, like me, come to want to repeat it later in the afternoon or early evening, and go outside pumping heavy hands weights of 6-8 pounds or so, as you walk around a forest trail, for maybe 15 minutes or so.  Or go to your gymnastic rings and do a quick set of pull ups, chin ups, push ups, and dips.   This is what I call “Paleo Happy Hour”!  Cheers!! 

pjsc 118  Where should a modern day Paleo person live? I have been giving this a lot of thought, and actually, it seems so obvious to me! I know there are hotbeds of “paleo aficianados” in pretty urban places, like NYC, and especially Austin Texas!  And God bless ‘em, I’m sure they are doing really great there, or at least as good as they can, and I wish them luck! The problem is, I think that people tend to live in the past; that is, they idolize a “perfect time” in a certain place, and subconciously convince themselves that that time is now. Like so many Woody Allen fans convince themselves, like he does, that New York City is the New York of the 1940’s... the city portrayed by the New York Times and the New Yorker magazine of that era... Sorry, but it’s not even close anymore!  I came from Chicago, and the crime-ridden nightmare that that city has become is not even close to what it was in the 1950’s or 60’s- even the 70’s!! I hate to sound the alarm, politically incorrect as it is, but someone has to say “the Emperor has no clothes”! Out BIG CITIES have become largely unlivable: racked with governmental corruption, NO real police protection, and riddled with bad water, food deserts, and no contact with real Nature anymore for any of the residents! Light pollution, noise pollution, traffic pollution, and just too many people pollution have ruined our big cities! And our suburbs!  Our suburbs ringed about major cities are elitist places nowadays, obsessed with “big dollar high achievement at the expense of anything else”, and likewise an obsession with status and money, since nowadays that is what it takes to remain in the suburbs.  The nice ones, that is.  The ones that retain some semblance of normal American values, that try to emulate some semblance of real, small town values... God bless the suburbs, but they are fighting a losing battle against the over-the-top corruption and crime of the big cities all around them!  They are fast turning into Gated Communities, hoping to retain their character.  Big, top down government will NOT allow that to continue.  Besides, the cost of admission via housing costs is prohibitive to anyone with a normal job! So where should a Paleo type of person live?? A smaller city (less than 500,000 people) is ok, but the ideal is to live outside of a small town, or small city of 50,000 or so. In my opinion, this is ideal.  In the ancient Greek city-states, like Athens and Sparta, this was the average size of a “polis”, meaning a citizenship or body of citizens.  Anything more becomes unmanageable!  In communities of this size, every person still matters, and has a real voice. So, pick out a small town, outside of a small city!  Or, if you are more urban minded, you can live right IN that small city!!  Cities of that size are kind of “small towns” in and of themselves, in this day and age. The water will be better!  If you live outside of the city, you can rely on well water, which will be vastly better!   The light pollution can be very little indeed, giving you wonderful sleep, without needing blackout curtains.  And the noise pollution will be virtually non-existent. You will be able to afford a large acreage to live in (avoid “developments”!, which will give you an area in which to “forest bathe”, and simply to have wonderful privacy for your family and yourself to exercise outside, and expose yourself to the sunshine and the Vitamin D without anyone staring like an idiot with disapproval that you aren’t wearing sun screen... You will be able to grow a large garden, digging in the pro-biotic rich earth, and reinforcing your gut microbes daily, as you run, walk, and spring around your yard barefoot!  You can have chickens for their eggs and meat if you want, and there will definitely be a farmer or rancher close by that you can befriend and have a relationship to gain real, fertile eggs (I you don’t have your own), and pastured beef, pork, and poultry!)  This is in and of i

pjsc 117  Add in the Good StuffI think one of the crucial parts of a healthy, Paleo type of health transforming diet that is NOT noticed by most, is the fact that, unlike the standard mainstream diets- like “Low fat High Carb”- which is the standard American Food Pyramid- the key point is to add in good, natural foods.  It is really NOT to “eliminate bad foods”!  Of course, I want you to eliminate toxic, processed foods.  Fake Foods like modern “altered/fake” wheat.  Fake Foods like soda pop!  Fake foods that are anything low fat!!  And fake foods like vegetable oils, which are chemically and industrially extracted- ALL OF THEM!  But that’s it- just take care of that, and you will start to feel better quickly, and forever.  Health conditions will start to drastically improve, and you will feel amazingly better!But don’t stop there!  Many do; they just start getting rid of things that are obvious toxins, like donuts and breakfast cereals, and think:“Well, I’m feeling way, way better!  I’ve lost a lot of fat weight, and my brain feels alive and well- what should I eliminate next??”This is the mindset that develops: “Since I improved my health so much by eliminating wheat, low fat dairy, and processed crap foods- where should I eliminate next??”And the person goes on to eliminate  All dairy, full fat includedMost FAT, including really good, wonderful fats like olive oil, avocado and coconut oils!And they cling (especially women) to the misguided notions that calories need to be drastically limited!!Those are the common, and most pernicious “denials” of the self fulfillment of maximum nutrition and healthiness.Here is the PaleoJay prescription for maximizing your health, in a Paleo way:Drink a Green paleo smoothie each and every day!  At least 16 ounces, which is one canning jar full.Eat a LOT of fat!  Good fat, pastured butter, coconut oil, lots of cream in your coffee from pastured cows if you can get it.  Olive oil, fatty grass fed beef, pork, and chickens!BONE BROTH!! Seafood, at least once per week, minimum!If there is one thing important for your health, after a really nutrient dense foundational item like a Green Smoothie, it is bone broth.  Just do it!  Take the bones from your grass fed beef, chicken, or pork- put them into your slow cooker filled with good quality water, a little apple cider vinegar, and some sea salt. Simmer for about 24 hours, and then drink some, or just can it all (sans the bones!).  I mean, just ladle it into canning jars, cap with the lids, and line up in your fridge like little soldiers...Just like I hope you have little canning jars (16 oz. seems ideal) of a Paleo Green Smoothie lined up on one side of your fridge, on the other should be these little bone broth soldiers.  They are ready and waiting, to march onward to maximizing your health and wellness!At least a couple of times per week, heat up some bone broth in your microwave, or else use it as the base, the broth, to make soup, or another dish.  You can easily drink it plain, as a hot beverage, or you can add it to a good quality canned soup to make it super soup!However you do it, this will do more for your body than anything else, except for your Paleo Green Smoothie, which you should have every single day as a “foundation of health”.I like to think of it as the “nectar of the gods”!  Or else the fountain of youth!!And if you add in bone broth??!   Well, just add some canned sardines to that as the main course...Now, we are talking AMBROSIA!!

pjsc 116  Inclined Bed Therapy cures EVERYTHINGAccording to several researchers, traditional horizontal sleeping has been shown to prevent the ability of the body's circulatory system to function at an optimum level; thus, this sleeping position causes restricted blood flow and the inability of the lymphatic system to flush out the toxins that accumulate in the many networks of vessels throughout the body. Inclined Bed Therapy (IBT) tends to solve this problem. Introduced by Andrew K. Fletcher, Inclined Bed Therapy (IBT) involves sleeping on a bed raised at the head between 4 and 8 inches using bricks, wedges or blocks. This utilizes the force of gravity to improve the circulation of the body while asleep and taking advantage of this by allowing body cells to heal and regenerate on their own.  Circulation is maintained and improved from changes  in all fluid densities in the lymphatic system due to gravity. For this,  reports from users around the world stated that Inclined Bed Therapy can be useful in disorders such as spinal cord injury, back pain, acid reflux or GERD, sinus and respiratory disorders, sleep apnea, poor circulation, blood pressure, multiple sclerosis and diabetes.  I know, it sounds absolutely incredible!  Basically the theory is that every condition of the human body, any disease or imperfection, is improved drastically by sleeping with increased circulation!Hey, that doesn’t sound so crazy, does it?  Circulation is literally the lifeblood of the human body- improve that in a large way, and; well, the human body will improve from the increase in life-giving circulation.Andrew Fletcher is the Englishman who introduced this form of therapy, after deducing that the circulation of the sap in trees is exactly like our own circulation- it is not only through the action of a “pump” (in our case, the heart), but it is the action of gravity and “transpiration”, which raises the fluid in trees to hundreds of vertical feet in height.The human body works similarly- by sleeping on a flat surface, we inhibit our circulation.  The venous return of the blood is hampered by sleeping flat.What is crazy is that sleeping with the head of the bed elevated 5-6 inches solves all of your circulation problems!No cost, no lifestyle change- just sleep with your head elevated at a roughly 6 degree elevation!If you have varicose veins, this is a fast, total cure.  No debate; it is!  But there are many, many other benefits:Psoriasis, spinal cord injury, Parkinson's disease, cerebral palsy, bladder incontinence, bed wetting, insomnia, fidgety legs and limbs / Ekbom syndrome oedema, sleep disorders, night time paralysis, multiple sclerosis, ME, CFS, diabetes, varicose veins, migraine headaches, poor eye sight, pain, bowel incontinence, acid reflux, gerd, balance problems,  lethargy, poor circulation, metabolic disorders, immune deficiency, these are just some of the diseases that improve with IBT.Ironically, standard medical practice is to elevate the foot of the bed, to make people sleep on a decline for varicose veins.  This helps at first, while the patient is lying down, but as soon as he gets up the swelling comes back!  By raising the HEAD of the bed, the natural circulation is increased hugely, and in a permanent fashion.  Actually, the thing to remember is this: To lay totally flat in a bed is harder on your body than anything else you can do!  When you stand or change positions all day, or run, walk, or exercise, your circulation increases in a big way.  We all know this!  BUT, if you sleep in an elevated head position, your circulation during those hours is vastly improved as well.  So, if you sleep like this, which is about 1/3 of your life, your health will improve by a huge, huge margin.OK- I have done this (you knew old Paleojay would, didn’t you grasshopper?), for several weeks.  First, I just noticed that I slept really, really well!   So did my wife, who initially was NOT on board to raise the head of the bed.  But the pro

pjsc 115 Don’t be Pushin Too Hard- Let it GoI can honestly say that nowadays, in modern America at least, we all pretty much are “PUSHIN’ TOO HARD”!  We work too many hours, at usually quite sedentary jobs, and while we work, we are constantly thinking about just what else we need to get done!  There are monetary goals, how we need to get this cleaned or taken care of on the house, car repairs and maintenance... and on top of that we are utterly consumed with our kids: are they in enough activities?  Do we need to enroll and drive them to even more, so that they are not deprived and not able to cope in this ever-more hyper competitive world??And, on top of all that, we think we just need to do more!  More exercise, more stretching, more cardio, more money, more partying, more socializing, just more more more MORE!Welcome to America today! It was not always this way.  Back in the 1950’s, which so many hold in nostalgic regard nowadays, I am here to tell you that it was not this way.  The hyper-competitiveness existed, but it was mainly confined to the big cities, and the types of folks that are always around with fragile egos and big ambitions.  But back then, they were regarded with raised eyebrows, and seen for what they were:Insecure people that needed outside validation.Most people were content with a normal house, a regular secure income from a regular, real type of job.  Back then, ALL jobs were considered honorable- physical jobs were at LEAST as good as office work; actually, physical jobs paid HIGHER back in those days, and office work was reserved for those who could not, or WOULD not do harder work!  But this is all just leading up to now, when we are confronted with learning what is really important in life, now and forever.It has become all about the money.  And the power.  It was not always thus; being well regarded was considered all important back in the day.  A man’s (or woman’s) word, honesty, and reputation were far more valuable than the money in his safe.  Imagine Scrooge: nowadays, he would be the PERFECT MAN.  Especially if he had perfect abs, a healthy life, and a huge mansion that he showed on TV.But let’s get back on track, let’s talk about paleo diet and health!  How does this relate to that, PaleoJay my guru?It is so important to back away from these hard-driving, hyper-competitive, super achieving mindset goals!  Just having this mindset can completely ruin your health,fitness and wellness, even while eating a perfect paleo diet, exercising in a perfectly paleo way, and achieving all of your monetary and other physical goals.If you push unrelentingly to failure, you will fail!In anything, and everything.  Push to failure in your career, your marriage and health will fail.Push to failure in exercise, and you will be injured.Push your kids to failure, and they will fail in life, even if they achieve what you push them at. Push yourself really hard to be “perfect”, and you will wind up diseased, frail, and falling apart physically, and probably mentally as well.Nothing really should be “pushed”.  We are just natural humans, and our needs and real wants are very simple.We all need to be pretty much autonomous, and self validating, without some authority micro-managing us.  This means minimal government, and it means minimal medical intervention.On your own end, this means letting things slide a bit...Don’t judge others for not keeping up to your “standards” of a perfect lawn and house- this actually means pouring glyphosate onto your lawns, thereby poisoning the water supply for all of your neighbors.Leave your kids to their own devices- let them interact, and play with their friend in the neighborhood on their own! (Don’t insert yourself, ala “little league” and other adult organizations to fulfill your own unfulfilled ego from childhood!).Above all, don’t try to be the:richestskinniest most successful and our children are the most successful too!most “accomplished”and even HEALTHIESTof your friends an

I know this post might scare you- in our modern, western culture the very notion of not eating is enough to scare the heck out of us!It was not always so; in fact, it has almost never been so.  Hippocrates, the Greek founder of modern medicine, said around 400 BC: “To eat when you are sick is to feed your illness”.  Plato and Aristotle concurred, as have most other thinkers such as Ben Franklin, who said: “The best of all medicines is resting and fasting”.  Who do you think would recommend such a thing now, when everyone is in a constant headlong rush to get everything done, especially medical doctors!?  No, you have to treat yourself in this matter, as you really should be treating yourself in all matters of health!  In  fact, did you know that the third leading cause of death today in the US is “Death by Doctor”?  That’s right, just checking into a medical clinic for treatment ups your chance of dying tremendously, either by contracting one of the “superbugs” that now run rampant in most hospitals and are largely immune to antibiotics, a mistake in surgery, or most commonly, by a correct usage of prescription drugs!!  Legal drugs are far more lethal than illegal drugs, believe it or not!!But that is another subject, for another podcast: for now, let’s just agree to heal ourselves- by FASTING!You don’t have to fast for a full 24 hours or more!  But you can, no problem... just so you know, it is perfectly safe and actually very very healthy to do so.  When you fast, you do NOT “lose muscle”, but you very likely will lose fat.  FAST.  LOSE FAT FAST(ING)! And that is just one benefit.  When you fast like I prefer to do, which is every day, you just eat during an 8 or so hour window, and then fast the other 16 hours.  For instance, an easy way to fast is to just have coffee upon arising in the morning, and then eat your first meal at 12:00 noon.  It’s really easy to do this, at least for most people!  You are now in your “eating window” of 12 noon til 8:00 PM in the evening.  I usually wind up just eating lunch (around noon), and supper around 6 PM.  I go to bed about 10 PM, and get up around 6:00 AM, at which time I work out... working out fasted means your body is primed to shed fat and store muscle even better!  It also suppresses, not increases your hunger.You could also do it the other way around, by eating a big breakfast of High Fat Low Carb (HFLC), which is basically the Paleo prescription, and then another meal at 2 or 4 PM.  Just so you sleep 8 hours (at least), fast another 8 hrs either in the AM or the PM, and make sure you eat a diet of natural, paleo friendly real foods and eliminate the processed junk and wheat and most potatoes and rice and other carbs!  One of the best benefits of Intermittent Fasting as this style of eating is called, is that your body goes into “autophagy” during that 16 hours of not eating or fasting:This means that the digestion process can rest, and the body can concentrate on cleaning house; your body can eliminate “junk cells” like pre-cancerous cells, otherwise get rid of things it does not need or want.  Your body gives itself a housecleaning, ridding itself of toxins!This is why fasting is promoted amongst virtually every traditional culture in history- because it worked wonders!Now, of course, Big Food manufacturers and Fast Food purveyors have a vested interest in you eating constantly, from your sugary flake crap cereal and fake orange sugar juice in the morning to your Big Gulp and Big Burger on 4 buns with fake vegetable oil cheese, to your deep dish dough-boy pizza in the evening, and all those grain chips and doodles and pretzels all day long...Get it?  Even when everyone in the world ate healthy, paleo types of ancestral diets, and everyone exercised out of necessity on a daily basis; even then they knew the crucial role played by fasting!Think how much more we need it now!  So start out by Intermittently fasting- not necessarily every day, but just try it out, and see how easy

pjsc 113  Build your health from the inside outThat’s right- build your health naturally, and very effectively by imbibing a magical elixir each day:  A Paleo Green Smoothie!Sometimes I feel a bit funny that I harp on this one thing so much, but it really is that important.  Just by whipping up several days worth of smoothie in your Vitamix blender, and then drinking one glass that morning, and saving the rest in 3 or 4 Ball canning jars in the fridge; well, that brief bit of efforts not only supplies you with the perfect breakfast for most of the week, but it also insures your perfect health for the week!  Really, you have just supplied your body (and mind!) with complete and total nutrition, in a concentrated form, and in the totally natural form of real food.  This is key, since supplements made from chemicals are just a guessing game, and can easily be too much of one and not enough of another, and so put your body out of balance in proportions of nutrients.  Let your Vitamix do the chewing for you!  It will “chew” your veggies, and all else you put into your magical smoothie elixir, even if those foods are frozen.  It will all become an easily assimilable liquid, one which your digestive system can easily break down and take immediate advantage of.The other thing your Paleo Green Smoothie will do is to take away your hunger!  It really does this well, since it is so loaded with everything your body is constantly crying out for, and almost never gets enough of, unless you eat a diet exclusively of grass fed liver, and lots and lots and lots of dark green leafy veggies.  And that means several BIG salads per day, and LOTS of chewing... did you know Paleo people of old had really strong jaws, but their teeth, while perfectly healthy, often were worn down from the endless chewing they needed to accomplish eating enough vegetables and little root tubers? Especially since this was before anyone knew to wash veggies or roots (or animal carcasses!), and just ate them with the dirt on!  That’s a lot of stress on your poor teeth...With a smoothie, you just- swallow!  Save your chewing for the grass fed steak you have later, perhaps with a baked potato and just ONE salad. (For fun and taste!)The Ball jars of smoothie are also perfect to take with you for an easy lunch or snack.  I like to couple a smoothie, a tin of sardines, and a square or two of dark chocolate for dessert... what a perfect fast, cheap, and really nutritious lunch on the go- no preparation, just put in your lunch box and go.Go to my recipe on www.paleojay.com for the Paleo Green Smoothie, and get going.  If you don’t have a Vitamix blender yet, you can get one directly from Vitamix by clicking on the link at www.paleojay.com, again- just to the right side of the page.  This gets you the Vitamix of your choice, with completely free shipping!And if you want the entire PaleoJay recipe for paleo living, in an organized form, my ebook “Perfectly Paleo Exercise” is on sale on Amazon.com for just $2.99- that is $5.00 off the regular price.And all of those, my friends, are my Oktoberfest Paleo gifts to you.  Take them all, in good health!Gemutlicheit!

pjsc 112 If you don’t have time for exercise, You WILL have time for disease!I borrowed this title from Shawn Stevenson, who has the Model Health show podcast... thanks Mr. John “No Bite” for alerting me!  Check out his podcast: it’s quite good!  And heed his advice- you DO need to exercise!  Not super hard, and to “failure” as so many recommend- definitely NOT.  But, your body was definitely built to MOVE, and if you don’t move around, a LOT, you will definitely be making room for disease, and your life will be shorter, and FAR less pleasant than it could be otherwise.Diet, of course, is important.  Vitally important!!  So, with that in mind, grasshopper: cut out the processed foods, the fast foods, the sugar, and above all the grains!  The grains are the hardest for everyone, since they’ve been touted, pushed, lauded, and applauded for decades!BUT THEY ARE POISON TO YOUR BODY AND MIND!!That’s it, that’s the bottom line: if you didn’t know before now that our own American government, medical clinics, and so-called “leaders” have been lying to you...Well, now you do.  The “food pyramid”, or now the “my plate” promoted by your tax supported government agencies- Is guaranteed to make you sick, fat, diabetic, and prone to heart disease and cancer!Multiple servings of grains and sugars per day will do that.So, cut that out, and go back to the diet of your grandparents.  Eat real food, meat and veggies, real fat (nothing of vegetable “fake” fats like margarine or soy oil- just real foods, like God made them!!  GMO grains are made to be avoided.  Who wants to be part of a government experiment to see if maybe these will kill us, but we won’t know for years??But back to topic: EXERCISE.  You need to do it.  Your body’s genetic expression expects it, and if it doesn’t happen, your whole body will start to unravel- give up- it actually thinks it is already DEAD.  Our bodies NEED movement, and they need physical exercise, or stress!Start out with pushups, and walking barefoot.  If you can do 20 pushups, start out with ten.  If you can do 10, start out with 5.  If you can’t do any, do them supported on your knees “Girl pushups, if you will”, and do one or two.  It doesn’t matter where you start- the important thing is to progress, gradually.  Your body will thrive on this!  All it wants is a direction- either towards health, fitness, and wellness...  or towards less movement, less vitality, disease and death.Your body, and Nature doesn’t really care, either way- It is YOUR CHOICE.I have chosen movement, and health, fitness, and wellness!  I start each morning, and I recommend you do as well, with virtual resistance exercises, followed by intensive stretching, and then PUSHUPS.  Just like (I hope!) you learned in grade school, as I did.  As I said: start out with about one HALF of the amount you can do.  Do NOT go to failure, or anywhere near failure!  Then, after a brief rest, do another set of one half what you can really do!  ( I do mine in front of the TV, so this is really not onerous at all)- I limit my TV watching to when I am exercising, so I really look forward to it.  You will too, if you observe this caveat!I don’t care how advanced, or unadvanced you are, physique-wise... this system works amazingly well for anyone!  You do the exercise (please be sure to use perfect form), and NEVER go to failure, or even CLOSE to failure.  Repeat.Repeat again. Keep repeating.Watch the show.  ( I am currently watching “Longmire”, which I love!)  Your taste may vary.As you watch, feel your muscles, how they move- concentrate on the feeling of movement, like an animal would.  And just keep repeating, over and over, pushups after pushups- trust me, it’s kind of pleasant, gives you a feeling of accomplishment, and it flushes most of the major muscle groups of your body with life-giving blood!!  This is an incredibly health giving exercise routine, and over time will literally transform your physique, your health, and your life! Ironically, since

Perhaps you have heard of folate, which is supplied in our diet by including lots of green, leafy vegetables, cruciferous veggies like broccoli and cauliflower, along with beets and all those other colorful veggies we know are so healthy for us! (That’s why a daily, green Paleo smoothie is so important to ensure good health).Unfortunately, the US government decided in 1998 to lace all wheat products made in the United States with folic acid!  Folic acid is an artificial, chemical substance first synthesized in 1943.  It is NOT natural, and in 1998 the first “guinea pigs” to consume this chemical were the American public- virtually everyone in the country has been consuming it since then, thanks to the FDA.Folate is vitally necessary for human health, folic acid is NOT.  In fact, recent studies have implicated folic acid strongly in colorectal, prostate, and breast cancer!  Some believe that folic acid is largely responsible for the huge increase in all cancers.Folic acid also seems to be strongly correlated with the large incidence of autism in the U.S.!  It’s kind of like the awful fluoride with which most communities pollute their drinking water- you are stuck with it, like it or not, because those governments bodies (backed by the federal ones) have decided that it is good for you.Like they’ve decided that 8 or more servings of grains per day is good for us, and natural, God made FAT is BAD for us, along with red meat.  Sugar, by their verdict, is mostly innocuous...BS-   Avoid folic acid, my friends, and load up on FOLATE, which is in REAL FOODS.  The very best, most concentrated source is animal organ meats, but the veggies are almost as good.How can you avoid folic acid??  Well, if you only eat real foods, and do not eat bread, cereals, or any wheat grain product, you will not be dosing yourself with folic acid!  Just one more really good reason not to eat bread in its many forms!But there is one more place you might be ingesting this poison from:  virtually all major multi-vitamin pills are loaded with folic acid!!  There are a few exceptions, but then again:Make your own “multi-vitamin supplement” with your very own Vitamix blender, from real natural God made foods!  Simple, inexpensive, and very very effective.  This solution really is a “no-brainer”, and too good to pass on!  Sometimes, the Paleo world seems confusing, but in the end, it is very simple indeed-  Just eat real foods, as made by God and nature.  Purchased or grown as close to the real source as you can get (avoid extensive processing and packaging and marketing), and preferably cooked and eaten at home!  This way, you know exactly what you are getting.And, of course, now you know one more crucial reason to avoid wheat grain products! As if the facts that they spike your insulin just like sugar, and are absolutely loaded with the glyphosate herbicide/poison, and that they are loaded with the anti-nutrients gluten and gliadin weren’t enough...Modern, American “wheat” has been turned into a monster!  Avoid it at all costs.

pjsc 110  Adjust and heal your own backWhat is the most precious part of your body?  Well, it would have to be your brain, right, since without that you cease to BE!  And right after that brain, which you can keep healthy by eating a high fat, low carb diet, getting good, ample sleep, avoiding stress, and keeping active in your exercise habits- comes your SPINE!Without your spine and the spinal cord, the communications from your brain to anywhere else in your body is CUT.  Luckily, we have a whole, protective suit of armor for our spine in our large groups of back muscles.  Unfortunately, the back muscles seem to be the most ignored in training and care, probably just because they aren’t immediately obvious when we look in a mirror or see ourselves in a photograph.Your back and spine should be a primary focus of each exercise session!  I always end my morning Perfectly Paleo exercise session with a back bridge.  Nothing “adjusts” and centers your back and spine like this one exercise, while at the same time strengthening your neck, back, even your legs and toes!  At the same time, it is stretching your back in a backwards stretch that is the healthiest stretch you can do, and the most beneficial, since it counteracts every other move we make in modern life, from being hunched over a desk or the wheel of a car, to picking things up off of the ground.Watch a cat stretch when it gets up, and you will see just how important stretching is to an animal, instinctively- and it should be just as important to us!  Lay flat on your back, and just stretch out your limbs first- right arm and right leg, as far as you can; then left arm and left leg, then right arm, left leg, and left arm, right leg!Doesn’t that feel great?Now, the back bridge.  If you can’t do it right away, don’t worry- just do it half-way, and gradually work into it over time- there is no rush, and each time you try you are doing great things for your body!On your back, pull both feet up next to your butt, flat on the floor.  Put both hands to your sides, and push up with your back, assisting a little with your hands if you need to, but mainly using your legs and back. At first, just raise the back, leaving the head on the floor, resting on the back of your head and neck while your back arches up and then down.This is a great start, but there is one more step to take:Slowly push up onto the crown of your head, supporting your whole body on your head and your feet, arching back until your nose (eventually) almost touches the floor!  Start out on your neck and the back of your head, but gradually, over time, gradually push your head back, and arch your back higher.  Then HOLD!A couple of minutes is wonderful, and literally will do more for you than any other single exercise I can think of!  It adjusts your spine perfectly, and will reverse and prevent any back injury and pain, and automatically corrects your posture perfectly.  The flushing of the brain with blood is a real tonic, and is more headache preventative than anything else in this world.Oh, I do mine (as I do all of my morning exercises) on a padded yoga mat; I suggest you get one as well, they’re cheap.  If not, at least put a folded towel down to cushion your head...Just take it gradually, and over a space of a few weeks or months, you will feel progressively amazing- this is a BRIDGE TO HEALTH!

pjsc 109 Rebuild your damaged body acvfkrtuI have said it before, and I will say it again: heavy weight training, endless cardio/aerobics sessions, and even the classic couch potato strategy all can, and usually do, result in the same result- an injured, weak, either just fat or “skinny-fat” body!  They all come to the same, unintended destination- a physique that no one would want, with lots of damage, pain, too much fat tissue, and a predisposition to not ever do anything to aggravate the pain- which means no exercise at all- ever!Obviously, this is a horrible conclusion.  We all should resolve to be the adult that our 9 year old selves would have wanted!  We should all be-Active adults, who are proud of our bodies, proud of our physiques, and pleased with what we can do physically!Pain free.  Sleep well, and have no back, neck, hip, knee, or shoulder pain.Strong, with a good endurance, and good flexibility.  Free of excessive body fat!No chronic disease!!!In the modern age, these seem to be increasingly elusive, if not impossible goals, at least in the public mind.  Everyone says things like “I’m too old now, I can’t change.”  And “I have to die of something!”Here is the thing: If you exercise with heavy weights, you will become injured.  No exceptions!  I know, I’ve been there.  Perfect form won’t save you.  Low reps won’t save you!  Heavy weights, on a regular basis, just aren’t natural, they aren’t “paleo”, and they aren’t healthy!  Likewise, the endurance sports, like running, triathlon, swimming and bicycling for distance and speed- will destroy your musculature, your joints, and your health, setting you up for cancer, fat storage once you stop (due to injury), and endless pain in later life!“Oh my GOSH!” you must be saying.  “Why, maybe I should just watch TV and play video games, be a couch potato and save my body!!”Sorry.  That is the worst option of all!  You will definitely get back pain, and early on, and you are set on a collision course with:Diabesity, Mental fog, and an early demise!SO WHAT SHOULD YOU DO??Perfectly Paleo Exercise!  It’s really kind of a no-brainer, but no one wants to consider it.  You know- how pedestrian!  Bodyweight exercises?  Pushups, sit ups, pull ups?  Simple stretches, self massage and back bridges??Isometrics???  Self resistance???And VIRTUAL RESISTANCE EXERCISE, where the muscles generate the resistance internally, creating the same stress as heavy resistance but without the trauma?It just seems too good to be true.  Especially since it has been common knowledge for thousands of years, throughout virtually every culture.  It’s just not new and different!Like Cross fit.I’m kind of sad to bring this up, since the ideal of Cross fit seems so pristine...But it’s not, not at all.  Cross Fit is a business, first and foremost.  It had a great premise in the beginning: combine the various realms of fitness into a whole!  Add in strength training, combine it with community and the spirit of competition and competitiveness, add in endurance and variety!  Wow- sounds great!  But then, they come up with Cross Fit “games”.  More competition!  People pushing themselves... way too hard!  Add in the pressure from that competition, multiply it to “Win at all costs!”, and we wind up with:MASSIVE INJURIES.OK- here is my bottom line: Do not see fitness as a competition!  It’s not a race, it’s not a contest, it’s not the “Hunger Games”!  Just like proper diet, in other words a diet free of processed foods, grain fed industrial meats, and fast foods and excessive carbs- FITNESS AND HEALTH IS A WAY OF LIFE- NOT A COMPETITION!!And this concept can be taken throughout your life.  You can rebuild your damaged body- just do Perfectly Paleo Exercise!  Ditch the weights- throw away your running shoes- just do simple body weight exercise- in particular Virtual Resistance Exercise- this is the most rejuvenative of all!Stretch and massage yourself as well.  Just as proper diet is really simple, once you understand

I could not resist this podcast title, which I read in the last chapter of Gretchen Rubin’s latest book, Better than Before.  Gretchen’s excellent book concludes with a quote from her daughter which of course was Every Day Life in Utopia.  The book is how to change our habits, in other words how to change ourselves and what we do on a daily basis for the better- exactly what I want us all to do here at PaleoJay’s Smoothie Cafe!WHY do I recommend that you eat an Ancestral, or Paleo type of diet, without grains and sugar, organic veggies and pastured meats and eggs?  Why, in the final analysis, it’s so you will be healthier, and this in itself means you will be happier, i.e. better than before!  And if you couple this eating strategy of eating God and nature made foods, and eschewing man made processed “foods” with an ancestral lifestyle that includes plenty of sleep, brief and intense sessions of exercise balanced by sessions of rest and “tribal” connections of family, friends and neighbors, and you make sure to get out and move in the sunshine and in nature- why, then you will be better than before!  And you will be able to title your life Everyday Life in Utopia, just as I now do.So many people, and I mean most people seem hell bent on pursuing WEALTH at all costs!  When they are young, they set these monetary goals, and they don’t set them aside no matter what!  They work largely sedentary jobs, for long hours away from what really matters (their family, friends, house and garden), and short-change themselves on sleep to “get ahead”.  It’s all measured in dollars...They “don’t have time for exercise”, or getting to sleep early- then, they sleep later than they should in the morning, and either get a processed fast food meal on the run, or else just grab some processed crap like a bowl of GMO Gluten Happy Sugar Puff Flakes, and top it with skimmed “sugar milk” and also enjoy some “sugar water” orange juice!  And the worst thing of all is- they also put this garbage in the bodies of their most precious possessions- their own children!This is the state of America today, by and large- we are spending our health to gain wealth!It’s like a pact with the devil, or with MON-satan!  And then, when you are getting older, the health you have ignored for all of these years is gone- wrecked- kaput!  And at that point, you would gladly trade your wealth to regain your health- but that’s not how it works.You may think you can go to a clinic or hospital, and they will give you pills and surgeries that will make you healthy again- but that is just a misleading mirage put forth by the drug companies and the hospitals and clinics to get your money.  The truth is that pharmaceutical drugs do NOT restore health; they merely mask symptoms at great cost, both in terms of money, and more importantly in side effects that are often worse than the disease symptom they are trying to mask!So do it- go Paleo!  Live in accordance with the timeless laws of God and nature, in the way in which we have evolved.  Take a tip from our grandparents, live as they did!  Drink bone broth to heal your gut, which is damaged from GMO grains, and an open highway to autoimmune diseases.  Have a green smoothie each day, loaded with veggies, kefir, spices and fruit!  Just eat real foods!!  And then you too will be living Every Day Life in Utopia!

pjsc 107 Your politics determine your nutritionI have been thinking about this for quite some time, and think it’s time to share.  If you are a conservative or libertarian, I can probably tell just from that how you feed yourself and your family.  Also, if you are a liberal, socialist or communist, that determines your views on nutrition and lifestyle as well.Let’s examine it, shall we?  If you are on the left side of politics, there are certain near universal givens:You believe that Big Government has most of the answers!  You believe the  top mainstream scientists, the big medical clinics, and the government agencies like the FDA, ADA, and all the rest have the peoples best interest well in hand, and are the “experts” that the American people should listen to, about everything- they are the smartest of the smart, and anyone who does not listen to them, and the AMA, and our industrial food supply experts is either stupid, selfish, or just a “bitter clinger” that believes things were better in the past, when it is obvious to you that we are living in the best of times!  And so, given these viewpoints, you would tend to follow the USDA “My Plate” guidelines, which recommends multiple servings of grains per day, cutting fat out of the diet, reducing calories overall, and taking all sorts of drugs if your health markers are higher than your MD says is ideal as you go to your frequent medical appointments.  You probably, if you exercise, go for long distances on treadmills at low intensity, perhaps for hours per day to “burn calories”.  And if you “jog” outdoors, you make sure to cover every inch of your body with sunscreen, as recommended by the Dermatologists!  And you make sure to wear heavily padded shoes, to protect your feet from pounding.You are happy to buy fat- free, highly processed foods like fruity yogurts at the grocery store, and enjoy lots of “healthy whole grains” in the form of breakfast cereals, granola bars, and whole grain bread (which of course you NEVER top with butter!) but instead with highly recommended vegetable oil margarine!  You cook with good fats like Crisco, and you stock up on plenty of good national brand orange juice and skimmed milk, since both are so healthy for you, as you’ve been told for your entire life by the government and the national media.You are so glad that our water is kept fortified with fluoride, to strengthen our teeth, and are happy for all the chlorine and other chemicals which keeps it free of disease!  You probably also believe that putting statin drugs in the water as well would be a great preventive health measure, and you support national control of school lunch programs.  And you LOVE it when your medical doctor (during one of your frequent “preventive” appointments) recommends yet another drug for you to take- because, if he says you need it, well then you do!  Now you will be healthy at last!Now, let’s say you are on the right- a libertarian or a true conservative...Pretty much everything is the opposite!  You believe in small, local government, and small local farms and ranches. You are very suspicious of the motives of large organizations, since as a rule they are all about making the maximum amount of money for themselves is a corporation, or gaining the maximum amount of power if they are a government agency.You shop from locally owned stores, and prefer buying right from the farmer himself.  The less processed the food is, the better it is!  You completely reject the Governmental “My Plate”, and have eliminated grains altogether from your diet.  You have added in real fats like pastured butter, eggs, and real cream and gotten rid of ALL fake vegetable oils.You drink real water, either filtered or good well water in preference to city treated stuff, and never drink bottled orange juice or skimmed milk, both of which are just basically sugar water which will spike your blood sugar, which then needs an emergency correction via insulin!  You know better than to go down

pjsc 106  Unless you eat a Paleo diet you are nutrient deficientI hope that title got your attention, because it’s true- if you eat any sort of S.A.D. standard American diet, or even any type of vegan, vegetarian, or even the so-called Mediterranean diet- you are deficient in vital nutrients!You probably get too many calories, but very little in the way of actual, health sustaining and health building nutrients- the result is inevitably going to beConstant hungerBlood sugar spikes and dipsFeelings of brain fog, depression, and anxietyProgressive extreme weakness as you age, inability to sleepObesity and skin problemsEventual crippling diseaseI really don’t mean to scare you, but if I do a little, that can only help to scare you into changing your diet and lifestyle!  It really isn’t that hard, especially for all of the rewards your health will enjoy, but there are are few things that are almost universal for modern Americans:Leaky gut- this is the big one, and the hardest one.  You really must get away from grains, primarily wheat and its built in poison gluten.  This one thing, wheat, which is the most consumed food in the modern day, has been bred into a Frankenstein monster, and is by itself setting us up for all sorts of autoimmune diseases.  Get rid of wheat, and you are really more than half way there!  (Incidentally, this is the only real difference between the highly thought of Mediterranean diet and the paleo diet, since both modes of eating encourage real foods like butter and oils, lots of green plant foods, and lots of herbs and spices).  But, this is a really crucial difference!Get some magnesium into your diet- magnesium deficiency is pandemic in these modern times.  The very best way is to start including green leafy vegetables into your diet in a big way!  The very best and most effective way to accomplish that is by buying a Vitamix blender, and making a green Paleo smoothie to drink daily- it doesn’t have to be big- I fill Ball 16 oz. canning jars, and fill about 5 from each smoothie blending canister!  Then, I just take out one each day, and enjoy it for breakfast, along with my eggs and bacon and coffee mixed with a little coconut oil and cream.  That one action will yield the most bang for the buck- go to www.paleojay.com and click on the Vitamix link, and you can order one direct from Vitamix with free shipping on me!  Get that magnesium back into your cells; here’s why:Neurological:Behavioral disturbances
Irritability and anxiety
Lethargy
Impaired memory and cognitive function
Anorexia or loss of appetite
Nausea and vomiting
SeizuresMuscular:Weakness
Muscle spasms (tetany)
Tics
Muscle cramps
Hyperactive reflexes
Impaired muscle coordination (ataxia)
Tremors
Involuntary eye movements and vertigo
Difficulty swallowingMetabolic:Increased intracellular calcium
Hyperglycemia
Calcium deficiency
Potassium deficiencyCardiovascular:Irregular or rapid heartbeat
Coronary spasmsAmong children:Growth retardation or “failure to thrive”CONDITIONS RELATED TO PROBLEMS OF MAGNESIUMIn addition to symptoms of overt hypomagnesemia (clinically low serum magnesium), the following conditions represent possible indicators of chronic latent magnesium deficiencyDepressionChronic fatigue syndromeADHDEpilepsyParkinson’s diseaseSleep problemsMigraineCluster headachesOsteoporosisPremenstrual syndromeChest pain (angina)Cardiac arrhythmiasCoronary artery disease and atherosclerosisHypertensionType II diabetesAsthmaAnd clean up the rest of your diet- cut the sugar way, way back!  A few empty carbs are OK from time to time, like gluten free baked goods and gluten free pizza crust, but make it rare- they just turn to sugar with no nutrients attached! Try to eat nutrient dense foods- grass fed meats, wild caught seafoods, sweet potatoes and white potatoes (don’t eat the skin!  loaded with anti-nutrients!), and white rice in moderation.  Occasional corn chips appear to be fine for most active people, as does occasional popcorn topped with re