Tag Archives: paleo diet

Were Our Ancestors Starch Eaters?

by Sean Croxton

To starch or not to starch.

With so much emphasis these days on Paleo, low-carb, and low-glycemic, confusion abound over the role of starch in the human diet.

I prefer to keep it simple and recommend that we eat like our ancestors.

But were our ancestors starch eaters?

Last week’s UW Radio guest Paul Jaminet seems to think so. And in the latest edition of his book Perfect Health Diet he outlines the scientific evidence supporting this premise, including…

* isotope signatures of fossilized bone
* the structure of hominid teeth
* the diets of modern hunter-gatherers
* genetics

Check out this quick clip from our show to hear Paul explain how our ancestors lived in open grasslands, and what it had to do with their starch consumption.

Posted by UW Sean in wellness

The Blog about Losing Fat by Making Shi(f)t Happen and Stuff…

by Sean Croxton

Dean Dwyer is a Professional Human Being.

And then some.

Anyone who can take books like Rework (about streamlining success and increasing productivity for entrepreneurs and small businesses), Good to Great (about how companies achieve enduring greatness), and Against All Odds (the autobiography of James Dyson, the inventor of the Dyson vacuum) and apply them to fat loss and personal transformation is my kind of guy.

Diet books will only take you so far, my friends.

So last night, I skipped the Lakers game and read Dean’s new book entitled Make Shi(f)t Happen: Change How You Look by Changing How You Think. Actually, I didn’t just read it. I inhaled all 268 pages of it cover-to-cover.

Was it good?

Heck yeah it was good! Rarely do I ever read a book straight through. But when Dean shared the epiphany he had after 25 years of eating “healthy” while still carrying around an extra 50 pounds of body fat, I was hooked.

In Dean’s words…

“There was no reason to believe that this time around would be different, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was onto something this time because my epiphany focused not on how to lose weight, but rather on how to think about weight-loss. Twenty-five years of doing “stuff” hadn’t worked. This time I needed to be different, and in order for me to be different, I needed to think different.”

Word up, Mr. Dean.

Posted by UW Sean in podcast, wellness

The Podcast about How the Paleo Diet Reversed Multiple Sclerosis and Stuff…

by Sean Croxton

I used to love Richard Pryor.

Still do, in fact.

I imagine it was my father who turned me on to him. At the time, I didn’t really understand his stand-up comedy routine — jokes about sex, women, and cocaine kinda go over a 6-year-old’s head, ya know.

I just remember my Mom covering my miniature-sized ears while he cursed up a storm on stage.

But that just made him cooler, Mom.

Off-stage and on the silver screen there was a lighter side to the potty-mouthed comic. The Toy — co-starring the great Jackie Gleason — is still one of my favorite movies. And who can forget his roles in Brewster’s Millions with John Candy, Superman III with Christopher Reeve, and the hilarious Hear No Evil, See No Evil with sidekick Gene Wilder.

I may have been 9-years-old when I first heard the bad news of Pryor’s diagnosis with multiple sclerosis (MS), a condition he battled for 17 years.

Like his comedy act, I was then too young to fully understand the outlook and implications of an MS diagnosis. It was not until I watched the movie Harlem Nights that it finally clicked.

Right away I knew that something wasn’t right with Richard. His speech was slightly slurred. His coordination seemed a bit off. His facial expressions weren’t the same ones I was used to.

He was deteriorating.

Over the next decade I would watch his condition progress further as he struggled through television interviews. Eventually, his wife did most of the talking for him.

The man who once strutted back and forth on stage had been confined to a wheelchair.

The man who made a living with his BIG mouth was rendered nearly speechless.

In 2005, he was gone.

The laughter had ended. MS is no joke.

Posted by UW Sean in podcast, wellness

Lights Out! Is Lack of Sleep Making You Fat?

When it comes to health and wellness, most of us are suffering from a bad case of tunnel vision. I like to call it “being stuck in The Box”.

The Box is fairly limited in contents, usually consisting of two things: diet and exercise. They’re all we seem to talk, argue, and debate about.

What’s the best diet?

Which burns more fat: long distance cardio or interval training?

Yadda. Yadda. Yadda.

It never ends. And worst of all, a lot of the answers we get seldom seem to work. Is there something we’re missing?

Last month, Gary Taubes, author of Why We Get Fat, was on UW Radio. He and I discussed the first law of thermodynamics, otherwise known as the law of conservation. This is the law that the calorie-counters cling to. It states that energy cannot be created or destroyed but can only change from one form to another. In other words, if you eat more calories than you burn, you store (conserve) those excess calories (energy) as fat. Do the opposite and you burn fat.

I can hear the calorie-counters letting out an “amen” right now. The first law of thermodynamics is indisputable! And I agree. The law is in fact true. However, as Gary pointed out, at no point does it address WHY we overconsume those calories.

Now let’s take a step outside of our pretty little Boxes.

Posted by UW Sean in kitchen

Sean Can’t Cook: Crustless Quiche with Summer Squash

It’s been a while since we posted our last Sean Can’t Cook episode. So in honor of Paleo Week on UW Radio next week, we’re hooking up some Crustless Quiche with Summer Squash!

Diane Sanfilippo, author of The Practical Paleo Nutrition E-book joins me to lend a helping hand via Skype. Buy and download her book HERE and get 26 easy, inexpensive recipes and tons of info on how to get your Paleo lifestyle started.

This is some good stuff!!

Ingredients:
4 Tbsp coconut oil
1/2 a yellow onion, diced
12 eggs, beaten
5-6 small summer squash (shredded in a food processor or by hand)
3 green onions, chopped
1 Tbsp fresh chives, chopped
Paprika (optional)

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Melt the coconut oil in a small frying pan and then pour it into a 9×11” glass baking dish to grease the bottom. Then sautee your diced yellow onion in the pan with the remaining bit of melted oil. Season to taste with sea salt and pepper. (Okay, I actually had some cooked onions on-hand leftover from a previous night’s cooking, but you can make them fresh.)