Category Archives: Primal Living

$5 a Day Paleo

It is often said that good food is expensive, while unhealthy food is cheap. Today, I’m going to show you how you can eat healthy, eat paleo, for $150 a month, about $5 a day. It’s not as cheap as KD (which would come to about $70/month with milk and butter) or ramen (of which you could eat 4 a day for <$30/month), but it’s much healthier and far more satisfying.

It is also said eating healthy takes too long too prepare. That is also incorrect, I spend about 15 minutes a day preparing food, and most of that is spent surfing the net.

This will require some small upfront investment, specifically a Costco card. It’s $55/year in Canada; it’s probably less in the US, not a big deal and it will save you a lot of money in the end. This will also require a decent kitchen knife, get one if you don’t have one. (Believe me, cutting some of this meat without a decent knife is a, literally, painful experience).

Cost: $5/month.

Drink

Drink water.

Water is free and water is good. If you don’t have a Brita filter water jug, get one; it makes water taste much better. It’s only $10, $20 if you get a bigger one, less than a pack or two of water bottles or pop. Make sure to add new water as soon as you drink to keep the container full; that way your water is always cold. It’s well worth it.

I can not stress this enough; if you only ever make one healthy change in your life, stop buying pop, juice, beer, milk, or other beverages. When at home drink nothing but water. (When out with friends, have some fun). It will have amazingly effective results for something so small.

Cost: negligible.

In fact, if you drink just one 2L of pop every two days, I just saved you about $30/month for a single $10 investment.

Dinner

Go to Costco, to the meat section.

Find the pork loin; it’ll be about $20-25 for about 10lbs. This works out to about 15-20 portions of just over a half pound each. That’s about $1.50 per meal.

Nearby should be the beef eye round. It’s about $18-20 for about 6lbs. This works out to about 10-12 portions at just over a half pound; about $2 per meal.

Go home, cut them up into either 1/4 or 1/2lb chops/steaks/cutlets (give or take) and put about a half lb of meat into sandwich bags (which you bought in bulk at Costco). Put one beef and one pork bag in the fridge, the rest in the freezer.

To prepare, simply fry in some butter or oil, put on a couple spices, and flip once.

Every time you eat one from the fridge, replace it with one from the freezer, so it defrosts for next time.

Cost: $40 for the month.

Prep Time: 30 min/month to cut meat; 15 min/day to fry meat.

Lunch

In the same meat section by some chicken breasts or thighs. The thighs are cheaper, but a pain to cut because they are more fatty. I usually get the breasts.

Buy one pack of breasts about 6 lbs each; it comes to about $20 each.

Go to the produce section. Find this:

It’s about $3-4 for a bag of sweet kale, 3 bags should last a week.

Cut the breasts up into small chunks and fry up it all up at once. It should all fit in a larger pan. Stick it into a container.

Every day take out about 1/14 of the chicken, mix it with a bit less than a half bag of kale. Add the dressing that comes with (or make your own*).

Do this once every two weeks; 6 lbs of chicken and and 6 bags of kale comes to about $40 for two weeks; about $3-4 per meal.

Cost: $80/month.

Prep Time: 45 min/bi-weekly to cut and fry meat; 3 min/day assembly.

You are now eating 2 satisfying, 1/2lb+, healthy paleo meals a day for $120 a month.

Breakfast

Skip breakfast. I rarely eat it; it is unnecessary. But if breakfast is a must, 5 dozen eggs are $10.  If you buy two, that’s 4 eggs each morning for a month for $20, buy 3 for $30 if you want 6 eggs a morning). Boil them, scramble them, or make an omelet. Throw on a bit of salt and pepper.

Cost: $0 ($20-30/month, if you must).

Prep Time: None (5-20 min/per day depending on how you prep the eggs).

Snacks

For snacks, bananas, apples, and other fruits are a few bucks for a large bushel, a large box of berries is usually only a few bucks (prices vary, so always check which are currently cheap), bags of dark chocolate squares are <$10, a 12-pack of Greek Yogurt is about $12, and large bags of almonds are $15. Mix and match as you like; the non-perishables in Costco size will usually be good for a couple of months.

Cost: Variable, $10-30.

Prep time: Negligible.

Other

Butter or coconut oil is a must for cooking. A stick of butter costs a few bucks and should last a month or two; a large container of coconut oil is about $10 at Costco and should last a few months (at least).

Buy some BBQ sauce to dip the meat in for flavour. I like to use a lot of Bullseye BBQ sauce; a large container usually lasts me a month. At Costco, it comes in packs of two large containers for about $10.

Get some spices, some salt, and some pepper. Some of my favourite spices include Montreal Steak Spice, Seasoning Salt, and Lemon and Herbs. If you buy a bunch at once, it will be a fairly big initial outlay (my first spice shopping was about $80), but spices, especially when bought in Costco sizes, last for a very long time, so they very rarely need to be replaced. After the initial investment, the cost becomes negligible. Or you can go slower and buy one new spice a shopping trip, which will be about $5-10.

Cost: $5-20/month

Prep time: Not applicable

Total Cost

There you have it, that’s two meals a day, each over a half pound of healthy food, for $125 a month. That’s about $4 a day.

If you add breakfast it’s about $145-155. About $5 a day.

When you add snacks and condiments, it’s about $140-$175. About $5-6 a day.

If you add both it is about $150-$200/month. About $5-7 a day.

That’s cheaper than a single Big Mac Meal. In fact, you can eat healthy for a whole day for the price of a Starbuck’s coffee.

Total prep time is about 2 hours a month and 20 minutes a day.

You really can eat healthy, real food for relatively low cost with little time investment.

Saving More

If $5 a day is too rich for your blood, you can save even more by:

  • Cutting out the snacks.
  • Reducing condiment and spice usage.
  • Reducing beef consumption and eating more pork.
  • Eating more eggs and reducing meat consumption.
  • Replacing chicken breasts with thighs, pork, beef, or eggs.
  • Remove the meat from the salad entirely and replacing with more greens.
  • Changing from kale mix to cheaper greens.
  • Intermittent fasting: periods of fasting are good for the mind, the soul, and the wallet. I went a week this summer eating only a salad a day for lunch, simply because that was all I needed.

You could probably eat paleo for under $100/month if you tried. That’s just over $3 per day.

I have done this once or twice when facing self-imposed financial restrictions; sometimes you just need ammo more than food.

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Now, this is my base. I generally buy more than this. I like BBQ ribs in the summer and both yogurt and jerky as a snack. I also keep a supply of Coke and some chips for when friends come over; the occasional family BBQ can also get expensive. The berries usually tempt me, so I almost always buy more than I eat.

But all that is luxury I choose because I can afford it.

Just because you can eat cheap, does not mean you have to; you can always buy better cuts of meat or organic food or extra snacks, or whatever.

But just because you are on a limited budget does not mean you can’t eat healthy (unless it is exceedingly limited). Also, saving money for better things than food is nice.

Eat only what you can afford; but eat well with it.

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* My salad dressing recipe: 2 parts vinegar, 1 part olive oil, a dash of lemon juice, and a splash of worchestshire sauce. Throw in a pinch of dried mustard and garlic powder, and a tiny bit of salt. Shake well. It’s cheap, easy to make, and tastes good.

Repost: Fat Acceptance

This last bit of the Omega’s Guide is taking more work than I thought. In honour of the end of #FatShamingWeek, here’s a repost from a year and a half ago. Still as relevant today.

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Fat acceptance seem to be going around the manosphere right now and derisive mockery seems to be the order of the day. It seems to have started with this guy’s (probably satirical) blog on fat game.

I’m going to avoid the derisive mockery, but  instead I’m going to talk about shame and self-hatred.

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First, some theology. Being fat is generally a sign of sinfulness.

Sloth and gluttony, the two primary causes of obesity, are two of the cardinal sins. It is shameful to be fat, because it is shameful to sin.

Derisive mockery is not untoward to someone who advocates the acceptance and normalization of sinfulness.

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Theology aside, obesity is still something to be shamed.

I do not need to go into all the ways obesity is unhealthy for an individual, that’s common knowledge. By allowing yourself to be obese you are quite literally committing slow, likely painful, suicide.

By allowing your body to destroy itself you are showing that you do not love yourself or your life. You are also showing you do not love those who love you and will be devastated by your early death.

If you are married, by being fat you are showing your spouse through deed, if not word, that you do not love them enough to remain attractive enough to have a healthy sex life.

You should be ashamed of being fat.

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Fat acceptance is concerned with ending self-loathing fat people feel for themselves. That is wrong.

Self-loathing and self-disgust is generally a sign that something is wrong in your life. It is your body and subconscious telling you that something needs to change as your current actions, lifestyle,and choices are negatively impacting your body and its ability to reproduce itself.

It is an evolutionary mechanism designed to protect you.

In the case of obesity, the shame and self-disgust you feel is your body telling you that you are killing yourself.

When your body and subconscious  tells you something is wrong, the answer is not to get over it, the answer is not to drug it into submission, the answer is not to accept it, the correct answer is to figure out the reason your body and subconscious are screaming at you and to change yourself so they no longer have to scream.

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Your body evolved in an environment of scarcity. Food was scarce, you rarely gained the calories necessary for optimal health, so your body adapted to urge you to eat as much as possible, particularly of sugars and fats, which provided a large amount of calories.

Modern industrial agriculture has made food abundant; it is no longer scarce but your body still thinks it is, so it demands you eat, and it particularly loves its fats, sugars, and salts.

When you do not eat as much as you can your body screams at you that you are starving yourself; when you exercise, you are depleting your energy reserves and you body screams at you.

This is why it is much easier to gain weight than lose weight. Your old primal self is no made to handle the new modern world. You should not ignore this, but you should know why this pain exists.

The curse of being fat is: Your mind and body scream self-loathing at you for being fat, but your body screams pain at you if you diet and exercise. It is painful either way.

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So why do people participate in fat acceptance, when their own bodies and minds are screaming at them that they are killing themselves, when all the research says they are killing themselves, when obesity negatively impacts yourself and those you care about?

Easy: change is hard.

It is a lot easier to come to accept (and possibly overcome) your self-loathing mentally than it is to overcome the pain of diet and exercise. Self-loathing is vague and amorphous, pain is immediate and direct.

Self-loathing can be reasoned at, self-justified, denied, and overcome by other emotions. There is no reasoning with, denying, or ignoring pain: pain is.

Instead of facing the pain, it is easier to accept the self-loathing.

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Shame is used for societal control. It is used by society to prevent people from following their base urges to self-destruction.

Forgoing shaming obesity, gluttony, and sloth is not loving; it is apathetic. It is people to destroy themselves.

Fat acceptance is not something society should embrace, for the good of fat people.

This is not to say fat people shouldn’t be loved, they should, but their obesity and the behaviours contributing to it should be shamed out of love.

Fat acceptance is telling people it is okay to engage in self-destruction.

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If you are fat, realize it is not healthy. You are hurting yourself and showing you do not love yourself or those around you.

Realize that the pain may be unavoidable, but it is necessary.

Overcoming the pain and making yourself a better person will do much more for you, your self-respect, and your happiness than any amount of fat acceptance.

If you want to improve yourself, I would recommend the primal diet.

I tried the primal diet; while being strict on it I lost 10 lbs in 3 weeks. After that I became less strict, but I’ve still lost about 25 lbs (12% of my body weight) in 3 months. I’ve never been actually fat, maybe skinny-fat, but I did have a gut, it’s quite noticeably shrunk.

The best part, after the initial three weeks it’s required almost no willpower on my part. I rarely feel hungry and I never feel like I’m missing anything; it requires very little discipline. Once you get over the initial hump, it’s easy. It causes minimal pain, while still getting results.

So, do yourself a favour. Try the primal diet.

Omega’s Guide – Body

You’ve started to train yourself socially and you’ve started to train your mind. Now it is time to train your body.

I shouldn’t have to explain to you why having bad eating/exercise habits is bad. You are putting your health in danger with you, you are shortening your life, and it doesn’t look good, but you know that already. You already know that being a lazy, pathetic sack is not something you should aspire to, so this is where you are going to start being healthy.

At this point I’m not going to get you to lift weights to become a ripped superman; if you want to that’s great (I’ve heard Starting Strength is a good place to begin) but it’s not necessary for the purposes here. The purpose of this guide is to simply make you a decent example of a social man, not a demigod in human form. The purpose here is to get you from either fat or super-skinny to healthy,

Myself, I was really skinny, weighing 155 lbs at 6’2″. Over my first three years of desk-work, living on my own, and martial arts (all began at about the same time) I ballooned to 210 lbs, about 15 or so muscle, the rest fat. Just before I started this blog, I started to eat primal. I lost 15 lbs in 3 week eating strictly primal, then another 15 over the next half year, being less strict. I’ve maintained myself at about 180 (I have about 5-10 lbs of fat, mostly in my gut, I could lose if I became strict again).

We’re not trying to make perfection here, win body-building awards, or even look ripped; we’re trying to make it so you aren’t a disgusting, fat slob, or a weak, sickly looking beanpole. We’re simply trying to make you healthy.

Overall, you need to strive for an ordered relation to food and exercise.

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There are two ways to start being more healthy: the incremental way and the immersion way.

With the incremental way, you pick one small habit (such as drinking only water) and concentrate on that for a few weeks. Then when that habit is ingrained, choose another small habit (such as stopping eating potato chips) and work on that, and so on.

This is slower to do, but it is also less likely to over-tax your willpower. It has a better chance of succeeding. It’s like slowly walking into the lake, you slowly acclimate to the water over time. I’ve heard Habitforge is a useful tool for this, but haven’t used it.

The full-bore method is simply to choose a major lifestyle change and do it until it is a part of you. This is what I did for my diet. I choose the primal diet and simply did it for 3 weeks.

This is more difficult at first, but it takes a shorter time. Like a jump into a cold pool, it really sucks for while, but you get used to it faster. It also has a higher chance of failing.

If you plan the immersion method, I would highly recommend the primal diet, it worked for me. Choose what you want, but that’s what I’d recommend. Mark has even written a guide to getting started for the first 21 days.
http://primalblueprint.com/products/The-Primal-Blueprint-21%252dDay-Total-Body-Transformation.html

I’m not a professional dietician or medical expert; I’m not qualified to tell you what to do. I’m not going to tell you what kind of work-out routine, or diet routine you should have.  That is your choice, do what you think is best for you. I’m only recommending what worked for me. I will give some very basic tips though.

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Some basics tips of proper exercise:

  • Keep up with your martial art and sports they are great starts and will carry you pretty far on your own, especially if you’re at an extreme of fat or skinny. Your martial arts instructor has probably told you to do some home exercises, so do them.
  • Workout Routine – Getting a work-out routine and sticking to it is best, but most people (me included) find it hard to do so. Find something simple to start with; start with a number of push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and lunges you can do, then simply do one more each day. Do it at the same time each day; such as after work, before your morning shower, or before going to bed.
  • Weights – Lifting weights is the most efficient way to lose weight and build muscle. It is also the hardest to stick to.
  • Workout group – If you find it hard to workout alone, finding a few friends to do it with you can make it a lot easier. If you have a significant other, exercising with her can make it easier. Simply having someone else who will hold you accountable (and vice versa) makes it a lot more
  • Scheduled workouts – A scheduled and supervised workout will be more likely to get you working out than an unscheduled one. So join a workout class or a jogging group or something similar if you’re hacing trouble keeping up with your workout.
  • If you are primarily trying to lose weight or gain muscle, doing high impact, burst activities (sprinting, weights, push-ups) takes less time to get the same energy-burning effect than low-impact activities (jogging, treadmills, biking). The latter is more useful for building endurance though.
  • Do small things. A bunch of little things add up. Don’t drive short distances; if you can walk somewhere in less than 15 minutes, then do so. If you’re walking somewhere, sprint part of the way. If you’re watching TV, do a few push-ups each time commercials come on. Little things like this do more than you think when added up.

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Some basics tips for proper eating:

  • Choose a diet you can realistically stick to. If you’re diet requires too much willpower, try to find another that uses less. As the Willpower book states, Willpoweris not a major factor in dieting. Even the best diet is useless if you don’t follow it. Again, Primal is fairly simple to follow, and the 80-20 rule makes it easy to stay on track; I’d recommend it.
    http://patriactionary.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/guest-post-preserve-thy-soul-in-self-control-a-review-of-willpower/
  • Do not yo-yo diet. Whatever change you make, make them as part of a permanent life change. People who binge diet, usually gain more weight when the diet is over than if they hadn’t dieted in the first place. DO NOT GO ON A TEMPORARY DIET; DO NOT YO-YO DIET. I can not stress this enough.
  • Pop, juices, and milk are all heavy in sugar avoid them. Drink water. If you make one single change, this is the one. Drink water; don’t buy other drinks and consume them only on occasion. When you are thirsty, drink water.
  • Fast foods are an occasional treat, not an everyday meal. Definitely do not eat it 10+ times a week like I was at one point. Limit it to once a week.
  • Make real food. Kraft Dinner and hotdogs are easy, sure, but so is frying a pork chop. Stop buying food in packages, and buy food that either comes from an animal or from the ground. Real food is a lot simpler to make than you think; try it.
  • Change your snacks. Not eating snacks is unrealistic at this point, so simply eat good snacks. Stop buying potato chips and candy and buy almonds, dark chocolate (70%+), jerky, vegetables with dip, and fruit instead. (Dried fruit is okay on occasion, but is almost as bad as candy if you have to much of it).
  • Nobody ever got fat eating vegetables. If a diet you’re on has you feeling like you’re starving, the best bet is to eat more, but make it vegetables. If you make a portion of food and it doesn’t fill you, make a salad and put some vinaigrette dressing on it. It tastes better then you think.
  • Try to focus on meat and veggies. Don’t eat too many carbs.
  • If you are skinny and trying to gain weight/muscle eat a lot of meat.

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Weekly Goal:

This week your goal is to be healthier. If you’re trying the incremental route, choose one healthy habit (I’d recommend drinking only water) and start it. If you are trying the immersion method, start it (or get the book on it, then start it when the book comes).

Again, if you are trying the immersion method, I’d heavily recommend the Primal 21-day challenge.

Health and Order

I’ve talked of health a few times before. I’ve condemned fat acceptance and gluttony and I’ve also written of moderation in diet and my own attempts to be healthy. I’m going to write on this subject a little more, as I have read this discussion on veganism at Vox’s and this discussion at Slate on body-building.

Despite the differences between extreme veganism and extreme body-building, both stem from a similar disorder, the undue exaltation of the body. Health is good; eating like a human, rather than gorging like an animal, is proper; keeping fit is wise. I encourage proper maintenance of the body (even if I do not maintain mine as fully as I should). But both these often go beyond being fit into unhealthy obsession.

My sister is a vegan; even though she’s not overly demanding or insufferable about it, it still demands a lot from her. Rather than veganism being a life enhancer, it is a life constrictor. Even though she’s fairly moderate and non-crazy about her diet. The extreme vegan places so much moral emphasis on his diet, he elevates it to a quasi-religion. Veganism becomes the cause in his life, overtaking other, greater pursuits.

Read about the body builder’s life linked above:

To gain weight, I have to consume 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day. Enough to comfortably feed a family of four. I have a gross amount of supplements and vitamins I’m convinced I need to take daily to grow. I have a collection at home and one at work, which has grown so large it has started to encroach my co-worker’s desk.
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At the time of writing, I have three gym memberships; I joke that I collect them, but some gyms just have better equipment for different things. Equinox has the best pool, 24-Hour Fitness has locations everywhere (great when I travel), Golds has better leg equipment … each membership has a purpose.

Monetary expenses aside, bodybuilding is a huge time commitment. I eat every two hours, workout for my lunch break, and sleep promptly at 10 p.m. to ensure adequate recovery time. I don’t go out to bars or stay out late because I worry it will derail my training regime and hinder progress. As a result, I rarely socialize with co-workers and have few friends … but, that might also be because I’m an introvert.
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Being bigger makes me happy.

I don’t think this is the reason why most people bodybuild, but for me it’s very simple: I was miserable when I was smaller. I felt so weak, tiny, and undesirable that I once attempted suicide over my perceived inadequacies. I still have a long ways to grow before I’m happy with my body, but I feel better about myself now than when I was skinnier, and my depressive episodes aren’t triggered as easily.

This man has let his size define him. He sacrifices everything else that makes life worth living for vanity’s sake: friendships, relationships, hobbies, liesure, intellectual pursuits, etc. He has become a slave to his body. His post on living with body dysmorphia outlines his mental subjugation further.

He lacks balance in his life.

Balance is one of the things that peaked my interest in the primal diet; it recognizes that health is important, but it is meant to enhance your life, not consume it. The 80/20 rule built into the lifestyle inherently recognizes the need for balance in a person’s life (although, I’ve been listing towards 60/40 for the last couple months). But even then, if you read some primal and paleo places, many put an inordinate emphasis in their lives on their diet.

This lack of balance, this body-worship comes from a lack of order and purpose in life. These disordered individuals have no meaning in their life, so they create one

Spending your life on your body is as disordered as being a slothful glutton. Do not neglect your body, but neither should you obsess over it. Recognize your body, your health, should be pursued to enhance your life and achieve your purpose. If it consumes your life and becomes your purpose, you should reevaluate your practices.

Find a balance; maintain order in your life.

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. (1 Timothy 4:1-10, ESV)

 

Juicing Experiment – A Good Recipe

I’ve been juicing again and added some changes based on some recommendations from the last thread. I ended up shopping unplanned on the spur of the moment so I didn’t remember all the recommendations given and Costco didn’t stock all the stuff I was looking for (Kale, celery, and beets), but the recipe I made this time tastes ok, almost good, and and was simple to make. So, I wanted to record it:

  • 2 large bags (about 500g, 1 lb each) of spinach
  • 1 large bag of broccoli (about 1.5 kg, 48 oz)
  • 4 lemons (forgot to get limes) with skins
  • 1 Pineapple

Post-juicing I added:

  • 1 container (500 g, 2 cups) of liquid egg whites
  • a splash of extra virgin olive oil
  • some sea salt

The recipe made about 2.5 litres (10 cups) of juice, enough for a about 1.5 cups each day for the rest of the week. It took less than half an hour to make. The cost was about $20-25. I like it.

Next time, I plan to replace one of the bag of spinach with celery, the other with kale, if I can find some. I’m going to add some whole ginger into the juicer, and some beets. I’ll replace to lemons with limes. Hopefully I’ll remember, when it comes to shopping next week.

We’ll see how that goes, but I liked this recipe.

Things I found:

  • Doing the leafy stuff first, and leaving the pineapple to the end, saved a lot of time. The juicer never clogged or shut off other than during the pineapple. The pineapple clogged it a lot, but by then the juice was almost done and it was fairly easy to unclog.
  • The first bag of spinach I juiced by just adding small amounts then slowly pushing the pusher down. The second I added large clumps that got stuck in the in spout and jammed the pusher down. The second method made far more juice and was far more efficient.
  • I the first two lemons without the skin, the second two with the skin. The second method made a bit more juice with a slightly different coloring and was faster. As Keoni advised, throw them in peel and all.

Anyway, not much to this post other than recording a recipe I liked so I can use it again later.

Adventures in Juicing

I started juicing today. Based on the recommendations of Juicing for Men and Hawaiian Libertarian I asked for a juicer for Christmas, and received Jack Lelanne’s Power Juicer as a gift.

I used it once immediately after to make sure it works; I threw whatever I had lying around into it to create a single glass. But I haven’t used it other than that until last week.

I decided to try to make enough for one cup each weekday morning, as I no longer eat breakfast, and would like a nutrient boost as a replacement for breakfast.

I ended up making a litre (4 cups) worth in about a half hour from the following ingredients, which ended up costing less than $20:

  • 1 large bag of brussel sprouts
  • 1 large bag of spinach
  • 6 bananas
  • a handful of leftover blueberries
  • 1 pineapple

Here’s what I found:

I didn’t notice any real improvement in my life from a week of juicing in the morning, but I did enjoy having something to fill my stomach early.

Costco did not sell either kale or collard greens, which is why I used brussel sprouts and spinach. I need to find a source of kale.

The taste was unpleasant, but not overly so. It’s something that seems like it could grow on me, or at the very least be tolerable.

My juicer had a hard time with the pineapple and the brussel sprouts tended to get clogged. It also needed frequent cleaning and even died on me a couple times (which was rectified by cleaning and restarting). If I end up doing this regularly I’ll definitely need a more efficient juicer.

Bananas are not good for juicing. They create a slime, rather than juice and made the consistency of the juice really weird. They also tended to clog the machine.

Pineapple is good in the juice. It adds a nice sweetness.

The berries and spinach juiced easily, and the spinach made a nice dark green juice which looked pretty cool.

The brussel sprouts had a harsh taste and tended to clog easily. I’d like to replace them with Kale or more Spinach.

The berries give very little juice. In my original throw whatever I had in glass to test the machine experiment, I used a whole package of blueberries and got only a tiny amount of juice. I don’t think berries are exceedingly cost effective for this purpose, but I might add in one pack each week for flavour and nutrients.

Conclusion:

I’m going to continue to try juicing to see if any effect takes place over a longer time period, but if I decide to make this a permanent part of my diet, I am definitely going to have to buy a better juicer.

I might occasionally post more on juicing as I do it. I can’t say that I recommend it at this point and haven’t noticed any real life improvement, but I’ve only done it a week. After a longer period, I’ll have more information to share.

Any advice or comments any of my readers who juice might have would be appreciated.

Die When You’re Done

Roosh posted Denying Death, arguing that’s it’s better to live for now than suffer now to live a few more miserable years. Danger & Play responded, arguing that being healthy is not for living longer, but for living younger while you live. Captain Capitalism has riffed on the same topic before, arguing not to save for now, but rather to prepare the Smith & Wesson retirement plan.

You should also definitely read this piece on how doctors choose to die.

Almost all medical professionals have seen what we call “futile care” being performed on people. That’s when doctors bring the cutting edge of technology to bear on a grievously ill person near the end of life. The patient will be cut open, perforated with tubes, hooked up to machines, and assaulted with drugs. All of this occurs in the intensive care unit at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars a day. What it buys is misery we would not inflict on a terrorist. I cannot count the number of times fellow physicians have told me, in words that vary only slightly: “Promise me that if you find me like this you’ll kill me.” They mean it. Some medical personnel wear medallions stamped “NO CODE” to tell physicians not to perform CPR on them. I have even seen it as a tattoo.

Now, as for me, family history wise, I should be long-lived and healthy. Both of my grandfathers are in their 80s, mobile, healthy for their age, and more or less independent, despite the fact that one of them smoked most of his life, but even so, eventually I will reach the point where my body will break down.

I find the thought of living hooked to a machine or living as a adult toddler horrifying. When I come to die, I plan to do so in my bed, surrounded by family, or possibly, go alone into the woods to feed the wolves. I do not plan to fight it, bu to embrace it.

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Now, the arguments of both Roosh and D&P both centered around health. Do you suffer now by denying yourself foods you enjoy, undergoing painful workouts, and starving yourself? Or do you live in the moment, and die when you die.

For this we will go to my favourite book of the Bible for wisdom:

In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these:
the righteous perishing in their righteousness,  and the wicked living long in their wickedness.
Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise—why destroy yourself?
Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time?
It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other.
Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes.
(Ecclesiastes 7:15-18)

Regardless of whether you are a Christian or not, the advice here applies to everything, avoid all extremes.

“Moderation in all things, including moderation.” – Petronius

Be moderate: take care of your health, but only insofar as you need to. Worshiping your health is no better than living a life of gluttony and sloth.

The point is not to deny yourself, not to suffer. Suffering is extreme and unnecessary. The point is not gluttony, that’s just leads to future suffering. Both of those are unnecessary, counter-productive extremes.

The point is to structure your life so you can eat healthy, while not suffering.

That’s why I eat a modified primal diet: the Paleo Fuck You diet, as it were.

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What?

My base diet is healthy. I generally either don’t eat breakfast, or have a couple eggs. For lunch, a bacon/chicken salad and for supper, some meat. Some fruits for energy when engaged in physical activity and some almonds, berries, and dark chocolate for snacking. I drink water. That’s describes the majority of what I eat.

But, if I’m with friends, I’m going to enjoy myself: pass me another slice and top up my coke. If I really crave a milkshake, I’ll stop by DQ. If I’m in a rush, I’ll pick up something off the value menu. I’m eating ice cream as I’m typing this: I haven’t had ice cream for months, but really craved it on the way home, so I bought some.

I never feel deprived, because I never deprive myself. If I really want something, fuck-it, I’ll eat it.

Yet, I still maintain my diet. I’ve lost 30 lbs (about 15% of my pre-primal weight) since April, while adding some muscle mass. I have more energy and endurance than I’ve had since I was a child. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been.

How?

Read the book Willpower (I mean it, best book I’ve read this year [well, technically tied for best with the Way of Man, read that too]).

Willpower does not matter for dieting. You can not willpower your way to good health or good diet; it doesn’t work. In fact, “dieting” leads directly to weight gain. There are powerful bio-evolutionary forces at work in you that will stop you from “starving” yourself, and there is no way to overcome them.

So what matters?

Habit and environment.

Start good habits and structure your environment to eat right.

I let my natural laziness do the work for me. I shop each week and I only buy enough fresh meat for the next week or two, some eggs, fruit, salad supplies, and a few condiments/spices as needed. I make a giant salad for the week, to split into portions each day for lunch. I do not buy unhealthy food, my fridge is mostly bare except the previous. So the choice is, either eat what’s there, or get to my car, drive to the market/fast-food joint, purchase stuff, and drive home. My laziness wins, so I eat my pork chops happily (with some Bull’s-Eye, because hey, it makes it that much better).

I have some stuff in the cupboard from my pre-primal days and some Coke and what not in my alcohol fridge for when I have friends over. But it takes more time and effort to cook something in my cupboard than to fry up some sausages. I have coke, but if I want one I have to go downstairs to my alcohol fridge and get it, while water is right there: I almost never drink Coke on my own simply because the 20 seconds it takes to go downstairs makes it too much of a hassle. If I want ice cream, I have to go to Safeway or DQ and buy it.

I never feel deprived because I never deprive myself, but I’ve structured life so my natural laziness limits how much unhealthy food I’m eating and the good habits I’m developing naturally take over.

So be moderate. Don’t deprive yourself, but structure your life so that you aren’t tempted. You’ll eat healthy, but never feel deprived.

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Back to dying. When should you die?

Should you live fast and die young, or should you eke out every tiny bit of life you can?

Neither, either, both. The question is flawed.

The better question is why do you live? What do you live for? What is your purpose, your mission?

You should die when you are done.

You should live until you have accomplished your mission or when your continued existence can no longer serve your mission. You should not allow yourself to die before then and you should not try to prolong your life beyond this point.

You do not deny death, you do not affirm life. You affirm your mission and realize death is simply when you cease to struggle in this mortal world.

Live to struggle for your mission, struggle to live for as long as you are able to advance your mission. Then allow yourself to die. Don’t drag it out, don’t fight it; go to the grave knowing you gave your all for what mattered to you.

That is when you should die, when you can rest peacefully knowing you have done everything you could and there is nothing more to do.

Die when you are done.

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Roosh, the Captain, and D&P seem to come at this from a hedonistic perspective. They want to enjoy being young; their mission is pleasure. So, it would make sense for them to live fast and young as long as possible, then fellate a gun when they are too decrepit to enjoy themselves.

If you live hedonistically, the Smith & Wesson plan or the early heart attack is the perfect death.

But, hedonism is not something that works for all; it’s just not enough for many.

Most people need a mission; something greater than their own self-pleasure to live their life for.

The S&W plan might not work for them. Living fast would not work for them, but neither would eking ever last painful second out of life work.

What will work for them is dying when they have nothing left to accomplish.

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Some personal reflection:

These last years, I’ve been looking for a mission. So far unsuccessfully. Because of this, I’ve cared little about whether I remained on this mortal coil or not. The lack of success has lead me to slowly become more nihilistic over time, and hedonism is looking increasingly attractive.

But it doesn’t seem enough.

I want to fight for something, to have a mission. I want to go to breath my last breath knowing that I fought for something greater than me.

Hopefully I can find it, before the S&W plan starts to make more sense than it already does.

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To conclude, avoid the extremes of health-nuttery or gluttony. Eat moderately.

It’s not about suffering to live as long as possible or dying young. It’s about fighting for as long as you can and dying when there’s no fight left in you.

Die when you are done.

Fat Acceptance

Fat acceptance seem to be going around the manosphere right now and derisive mockery seems to be the order of the day. It seems to have started with this guy’s (probably satirical) blog on fat game.

I’m going to avoid the derisive mockery, but  instead I’m going to talk about shame and self-hatred.

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First, some theology. Being fat is generally a sign of sinfulness.

Sloth and gluttony, the two primary causes of obesity, are two of the cardinal sins. It is shameful to be fat, because it is shameful to sin.

Derisive mockery is not untoward to someone who advocates the acceptance and normalization of sinfulness.

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Theology aside, obesity is still something to be shamed.

I do not need to go into all the ways obesity is unhealthy for an individual, that’s common knowledge. By allowing yourself to be obese you are quite literally committing slow, likely painful, suicide.

By allowing your body to destroy itself you are showing that you do not love yourself or your life. You are also showing you do not love those who love you and will be devastated by your early death.

If you are married, by being fat you are showing your spouse through deed, if not word, that you do not love them enough to remain attractive enough to have a healthy sex life.

You should be ashamed of being fat.

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Fat acceptance is concerned with ending self-loathing fat people feel for themselves. That is wrong.

Self-loathing and self-disgust is generally a sign that something is wrong in your life. It is your body and subconscious telling you that something needs to change as your current actions, lifestyle,and choices are negatively impacting your body and its ability to reproduce itself.

It is an evolutionary mechanism designed to protect you.

In the case of obesity, the shame and self-disgust you feel is your body telling you that you are killing yourself.

When your body and subconscious  tells you something is wrong, the answer is not to get over it, the answer is not to drug it into submission, the answer is not to accept it, the correct answer is to figure out the reason your body and subconscious are screaming at you and to change yourself so they no longer have to scream.

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Your body evolved in an environment of scarcity. Food was scarce, you rarely gained the calories necessary for optimal health, so your body adapted to urge you to eat as much as possible, particularly of sugars and fats, which provided a large amount of calories.

Modern industrial agriculture has made food abundant; it is no longer scarce but your body still thinks it is, so it demands you eat, and it particularly loves its fats, sugars, and salts.

When you do not eat as much as you can your body screams at you that you are starving yourself; when you exercise, you are depleting your energy reserves and you body screams at you.

This is why it is much easier to gain weight than lose weight. Your old primal self is no made to handle the new modern world. You should not ignore this, but you should know why this pain exists.

The curse of being fat is: Your mind and body scream self-loathing at you for being fat, but your body screams pain at you if you diet and exercise. It is painful either way.

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So why do people participate in fat acceptance, when their own bodies and minds are screaming at them that they are killing themselves, when all the research says they are killing themselves, when obesity negatively impacts yourself and those you care about?

Easy: change is hard.

It is a lot easier to come to accept (and possibly overcome) your self-loathing mentally than it is to overcome the pain of diet and exercise. Self-loathing is vague and amorphous, pain is immediate and direct.

Self-loathing can be reasoned at, self-justified, denied, and overcome by other emotions. There is no reasoning with, denying, or ignoring pain: pain is.

Instead of facing the pain, it is easier to accept the self-loathing.

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Shame is used for societal control. It is used by society to prevent people from following their base urges to self-destruction.

Forgoing shaming obesity, gluttony, and sloth is not loving; it is apathetic. It is people to destroy themselves.

Fat acceptance is not something society should embrace, for the good of fat people.

This is not to say fat people shouldn’t be loved, they should, but their obesity and the behaviours contributing to it should be shamed out of love.

Fat acceptance is telling people it is okay to engage in self-destruction.

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If you are fat, realize it is not healthy. You are hurting yourself and showing you do not love yourself or those around you.

Realize that the pain may be unavoidable, but it is necessary.

Overcoming the pain and making yourself a better person will do much more for you, your self-respect, and your happiness than any amount of fat acceptance.

If you want to improve yourself, I would recommend the primal diet.

I tried the primal diet; while being strict on it I lost 10 lbs in 3 weeks. After that I became less strict, but I’ve still lost about 25 lbs (12% of my body weight) in 3 months. I’ve never been actually fat, maybe skinny-fat, but I did have a gut, it’s quite noticeably shrunk.

The best part, after the initial three weeks it’s required almost no willpower on my part. I rarely feel hungry and I never feel like I’m missing anything; it requires very little discipline. Once you get over the initial hump, it’s easy. It causes minimal pain, while still getting results.

So, do yourself a favour. Try the primal diet.

30 Days of Discipline Conclusion

So, I reviewed the 30 Days of Discipline and had an update on it. I finished the 30 Days earlier this week, so here’s the conclusion.

For my main project, I got a decent start on it, even though this month has been the busiest I’ve had in a long time. In addition, I accomplished a number of smaller tasks that I’ve been meaning to get to for months. The 30 Days, really helped me in accomplishing things and freed up a lot of time that I otherwise would have wasted.

As for the other stuff, I followed the rules #1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, & 12 very well.

I did not accomplish my goal for #11 as I made a mistake on my affiliate project, had to restart, and learning the website creation tool I’m using is taking longer than thought, but I got a good start on it.

#4 was the hardest, just as I thought. Since my last update, I did well for the third week, but had trouble over the weekend. I reasserted for the last week, but my discipline failed near the end of the week.

#5 I got sick in the middle of the third week, so I fell off for a few days, but other than that I mostly kept up with it.

#7 I just plain forgot about in the final week. It’s the easiest thing on the list, but it was also very easy to forget in the mornings.

Overall, I would  recommend trying the 30 Days. It’s not easy, but it’s a good way to build some character.

Out of all the habits I’m going to keep # 6, 8, and 9. I’m going to half-ass #3, cold showers suck too much with too little benefit to continue with them, but I’m going to keep up doing lukewarm showers, rather than the hot showers I did before. #3 is one of those things I’m going to try to limit, but probably will only be moderately successful with.

Starting Off – Primal Living

So, when contemplating the red pill, where to start?

I started by reading manosphere blogs; one I came across was Freedom 25. Frost’s position in life before he started his blog and quit his job seemed similar to mine (except, he was more successful with women and not a Christian), so I bought his book and read it while on a business trip. (I’d recommend giving it a read: if you’ve been around the manosphere for a while, there won’t be anything particularly revelatory, but it’s a nice distillation of basic red pill information that would be otherwise diffused among hundreds of blog posts on dozens of blogs).

Out of all stuff there, the one the least disruptive and most obviously beneficial change was diet. My diet sucked and I knew it. I ate fast food half a dozen times a week, I would drink a liter or two of soda a day (on top of liters of chocolate milk and sugary juice a week), and I would snack constantly on chips and candy. This was actually an improvement over a couple of years prior where it was fast food almost a dozen times a week and two liters of soda a day.

Frost (and other parts of the manosphere) recommended the primal/paleo diet. I researched it on the internet and it seemed legitimate enough to experiment with. So I bought the Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. I decided to have a fairly strict test-run primal living for 3 weeks and was fairly strict for those three weeks. I finished a week ago.

The Changes:

I cut sugars (except for some honey for use in sauces and a daily piece of dark chocolate), grains, starches, and milk/milk products from my diet.

I had eggs for breakfast, a big-ass salad for lunch (with a homemade oil and vinegar dressing), and meat for supper. For snacks: nuts (primarily almonds), berries, and rationed dark chocolate.

Bananas for energy when engaging in extensive physical activity.

Water, and water alone, to drink.

While many paleo/primal practitioners recommend local, organic, and/or grass-fed options, I ate fresh and frozen meat from the grocery store and non-organic fruits and vegetables, as the extra expense and hassle of organic and local food did not seem worth the benefits..

Go to bed earlier for 8 hours of sleep (averaged 6-7 hours a night previously).

Wake up 30 minutes earlier so I could read the Bible and do daily exercise. Two things that I had been missing in my life.

Daily exercise: started with 25 four point presses, 25 sit-ups with bridges, and 20 lunges.

The Results:

I was more lethargic than usual for the first week, despite getting adequate sleep the entire week (I generally did not get enough sleep prior to going primal),  but not exceedingly so. The second and third weeks I had somewhat more energy than usual, but not more than a proper sleep itself would likely explain. I did find that I had more endurance for physical activity by the third week.

My mood tended not to fluctuate as much as it did prior to the diet. It’s possible the end of insulin spikes helped with this.

I cheated a few times; all when out with friends or coworkers. I went for coffee with a friend and ordered a sugarless hot chocolate (I don’t like either coffee or tea), ate a handful of chips on a couple of occasions, had a rye and coke on one occasion, and I had a Clubhouse Sandwich for a work lunch. A few cheats, but limited. I found being out with friends was by far the most challenging part of the primal diet. It’s not hard to avoid things at home, but when everybody else is snacking around you, it’s hard to resist.

For some reason, I really craved a chocolate milkshake for the last two weeks, I also had the occasional hankering for chips. On the other hand, I surprisingly did not really miss soda, candy, bread, cereal, etc. I had thought for sure I would crave soda, but I didn’t. I actually started to almost enjoy water, something I rarely drank before I started outside of when I played sports or was at martial arts class.

Making salads did take up more time than the sandwiches. I saved time by just making a giant salad on Sundays and taking some to work each day, although, at the cost of it not being as fresh as it might have been by the end of the week.

Cooking meat took more time than fast, boiling KD, or nuking a hot dog. On the other hand, it tasted better than the nuked hot dog and cost less than fast food.

I have never had weight problems, so I didn’t do this to lose weight. Until a few years ago I was very skinny with a BMI under 20, but was in terrible shape, with no real upper body strength, no endurance, and no discernable muscle mass. Then I took up martial arts; over the about two years I gained about 50 lbs, most of it muscle mass, some of it a gut. In the first week I lost 10 lbs, then lost 5 more lbs over the next two weeks: 15 lbs in total. My gut noticeably shrank; enough that others even commented on it.

Made my way up to 35 four point presses, 35 sit-ups with bridge,  and 30 lunges. Added squats, started with 10, increased to 20.

The takeaway:

Eggs are an awesome food. They will be my breakfast. A big-ass salad make a great lunch. I prefer both to the sandwiches I used to have for both breakfast and lunch. This will make up the core of my eating

I am cutting soda out of my regular diet, but will indulge occasionally when out with friends. Same with sweets (outside of some dark chocolate).

Meat will be my primary supper. I may have the occasional pot of KD (maybe once a month) or a hot dog with a wrap.

Water will continue to be my primary source of hydration, but I plan on buying a 2-litre of natural juice and a 2-litre of chocolate milk a week. I don’t think I’d be able to go without chocolate milk ( I used to drink about 4 litres of it a week).

When out with friends and family, I will relax and fully enjoy myself. The cost of not being able to snack and eat out with friends, family, coworkers is greater than the expected gain of avoiding a limited amount of chips, sodas, or pizza.

I am going to buy one bag of chips a week for the week (down from 3 or 4 a week). I craved them too much: if I don’t have a limited amount of them, I will inevitably binge.

I will allow myself to occasionally indulge in a milkshake or ice cream.

I am going to avoid fast food, but might indulge occasionally when I am lacking time.

If I really want to eat something not primal, I will indulge myself, but primal eating will form the core of my diet.

I will try to go to bed earlier so I can sleep more: I’m aiming for 7-8 hours a night.

I will continue waking up 30 minutes earlier and continue exercises.

I do not plan on going to organic or local options at any point in the foreseeable future.

If I ever do need weight loss, I will go strict primal for a few weeks. It seemed to work well at this.

Recommendations: I would recommend going primal to others, especially for weight loss purposes. I don’t know if the weight loss was from eating primally or just from cutting out soda and candy, but either way, I lost 15 lbs and noticeably trimmed my gut, while increasing the amount of exercise I was doing (and presumably my muscle mass). I gained some endurance, which was nice. I had fewer changes to my mood, possibly due to a lack of insulin spikes. It’s more expensive than eating grains and starches, but cheaper than fast food.

So that was the first step.

The next step: I ordered Roosh’s Bang, Day Bang, and 30 Bangs; they should be here in the next week or so. I’m going to read them through; I’ll probably post reviews when done. I might post some thoughts on them while reading. I probably won’t apply most of the information as, at this point I am not interested in pursuing meaningless sex as it would be against my religious beliefs and I’m still hoping to find a nice Christian girl to settle down with, but game is one of the foundations of red pill living so I should investigate it.