The window to my world

We often over-complicate things in our life. Just look at how people tend to deal with health. All sorts of weight lose plans are advertised on television, pills for this, pills for that, more ads for how to get into shape, never ends. What if we instead said “Stop!” and got back to the basics of fitness and nutrition? That is what Mark Sisson proposes in his book “The Primal Blueprint: Reprogram your genes for effortless weight loss, vibrant health, and boundless energy.”

In his book, Sisson outlines a philosophy on how to live life. He does this by looking at two fictional families, the Korgs and the Groks. The Korgs represent a typical modern day family, one you’ll probably recognize from the description Sisson outlines. The other family, the Korgs, represents a family on the other spectrum, one that lived 10,000 years ago. By comparing how these two families handled everyday life, from eating to how they received their exercise, Sisson shows how our ancient ancestors had it pretty good. The Korgs tended to be healthier then us and deal with much less stress in their lives. Sisson believes that if we lived more like the Gorks we would be much better of health wise.

Sisson outlines how to do with his “Primal Blueprint Laws”, which there are 10. These laws, based on how Gork would have lived his life, cover everything from what to eat, exercise, sleep, and having fun. In these 10 laws Sisson shoots an arrow through conventional wisdom around health and fitness. Low fat diets? Gork wouldn’t approve. 60 minutes on the thread mill? Not for Gork. Eat plenty of whole grain foods? Gork never would have touched the stuff. Sisson  gives his rational for his laws and provides evidence to support his arguments.

Is Sisson right? That is something you’ll need to decide. However I have a hard time believing that if you follow Sisson’s advice that you won’t get into better shape. I should note that this is aimed at people that fir into the description of the Korgs in the book. My advice is to read the book and try following its suggestions for 30 days and see how you feel. Even if you think you are in good shape, that you eat right, and doing pretty good, Sisson might trigger a light bulb in your head and make you think about what you are doing.

Is really addressing the health issue in this country. Want to bring costs down? Address that issue for starters. For example, the leading causes of death in the United States from 2006:

Heart disease: 631,636
Cancer: 559,888
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599
Diabetes: 72,449
lzheimer’s disease: 72,432
Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,326
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,344
Septicemia: 34,234

Start looking at how many of those have a personal factor in them, i.e. how diet and exercise plays a role in preventing these deaths. Then think about the health issues many of these cause and the long term costs of dealing with those. Pretty huge numbers.

The American diet is pathetic. We eat too much sugar, too much processed foods, the wrong types of fat, and overeat. Then look at our exercise level, also really bad. People in general don’t get near enough exercise.

What can we do about this? Very little. One could argue that if we are going to tax tobacco due to its health risks we should do the same for foods that are bad for us. I’m not a fan of taxes myself. I rather see the cost burden shifted back to the individual, with a tax credit for purchasing your own insurance if you want too. Let people start seeing the total cost of health and maybe they might make some changes in their lifestyle. I tend to doubt it but one can hope.