Entries Tagged 'diet' ↓

What’s Wrong With The Zone Diet?

Dear Mark,
I just watched your video about the 2 minute salad; simple, fast, and no measuring. I agree with the primal way of eating and I’m torn between the freelance style of PB and structure of The Zone. What is your opinion of The Zone?
First, let me thank Rob for his question. I’ve had [...]

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Easy Diet Changes

When we need to lose weight, it’s really common to get swept up into the mindset that we need to make radical changes. While this may be true, it may not be healthy to make such a drastic change in the way you eat. In fact, you may be increasing your odds of failure by [...]

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Insects: Not Just for Breakfast Anymore

Eat a Bug!
For many of us, it’s the stuff of childhood dares and fraternity hazing. In many cultures around the world, however, they’re considered fine delicacies or just regular daily fare. We’re talking insects or the more vaguely inclusive “bugs”: grubs, worms, grasshoppers, crickets, spiders, scorpions, beetles, termites, worms, ants, and other varieties in the [...]

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Dear Mark: Fiber, Fat and Fasting

Weekly Reader Mail
Dear Mark,
I have two questions. My first regards training and rest days. Simply, how many days of complete rest should I take for an entire week? I someone who’s been overweight for most of his pre-teen and teenage life, and who was able to lose that excess weight at 17 (I’m 20 [...]

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Late Night Eating

Friday night, I was up late. Not just normal late, but LATE late. I had eaten dinner at 7pm, so by 2am I felt like I was STARVING. No wonder, since it had been SEVEN hours since I had last eaten. I was out of points for the day.

What should I have done?

What I did [...]

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Roundup: First Sunday of August

For weekend reading from the Fitness Health Network this week checkout these posts:

How do you know if you’re properly hydrated? Journal of Healthy Living posts for Proper Hydration: Clear Urine Is Best.
Fat Man Unleashed asks Why Are We Fatter Than the Animals at the Zoo?
A Little Help - Best Way To Cook Chicken by NCN [...]

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Nakedjen Urges Us To Eat Locally

One of the benefits of living in Salt Lake City is that it’s the kind of place that attracts people like nakedjen. She moved here last January and after seven months in the town, she knows it better than I do now. I was enjoying the joy of her company at the Geek Dinner last [...]

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4 Pounds One Week; aka 66 pounds in 15 weeks

Ok! I am back on track… I lost 4.1 pounds this week without being able to exercise very much (torn peroneus longus tendon)… I stuck to my diet religiously.
I get to start rehab next week (3 days a week) starting Monday. I am very much looking forward to working out again…
Here is [...]

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The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person by Judith Beck

This is an incredible book by Judith Beck, the daughter of a famed researcher that revolutionized the mental health industry. Like father, like daughter, Beck is poised to make some big changes in the diet industry, using the same techniques. Beck’s philosophy focuses on Cognitive Behavior Therapy or CBT. This is a term that means [...]

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Weekend Backsliding?

Slippery Saturdays
Researchers say Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the most productive days of the week. Monday tends to be “recovery” day from the weekend, and the rest of the week, well, we’re often coasting along waiting for the weekend to arrive, aren’t we? (Ah, the lure of the weekend: the free time, the social activities, special [...]

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How to Lose Weight Over the Long Term

When you first start a diet, it’s easy to get all excited about the amount of weight you’re losing and how great you look. Unfortunately, most of us reach our goals and then go off of our diets. Within a few months, we may be back where we started, or in many cases, worse off. [...]

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The Definitive Guide to the Primal Eating Plan

Do the Math
In my recent Context of Calories post, I explained how the different macronutrients we eat at each meal (fats, proteins, and carbohydrates) have different effects in the body. I suggested that, despite their raw calorie values, it’s far more important to get a lasting intuitive sense of how much of each macronutrient you [...]

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Weight Loss with a Low-Carbohydrate Diet Is Proven Greater

The July 17th New England Journal of Medicine has published a report that followed three groups of dieters for two years. They compared low fat, The Mediterranean Diet and Atkins (low carbohydrate). You can see the full results here:

NEJM — Weight Loss with a Low-Carbohydrate, Mediterranean, or Low-Fat Diet

The overall weight changes among the 322 [...]

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10 Classic DIY Salad Creations

To honor National Salad Week (seriously… ) we’ve devised a list of our top 10 all-time favorite – and Mark’s Daily Apple-approved – salad recipes…
…and to think, you thought you’d never crave lettuce!
1. Cobb Salad

What’s not to love about this hearty (and protein packed) salad?
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
3 bacon slices, cooked
1 head romaine lettuce, leaves [...]

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National Salad Week

National Salad Week officially began yesterday. If you are a regular reader here you know that salads are at the core of the Primal diet. So to celebrate this momentous occasion we encourage you to whip up some fancy salad creations today, this week and the rest of your life for health and well-being!
Here is [...]

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Smart Fuel: Sweet Peppers

Pick a Pickled Pepper…
Sweet peppers aren’t just useful for adding a little pizzazz to your salad, eggs, soups or casseroles (is there no end to their talent?) they’re also a serious smart fuel.
To start, sweet peppers are an excellent source of both vitamin C and vitamin A, providing more than 200% and 100%, respectively, of [...]

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Progress on Goals for the Week

Since we are leaving for Boston this morning and not getting back until Sunday night I thought I would post an update today on my goals for the week since I won’t be posting my normal Sunday update (and unless I have the time and a computer in the hotel I probably won’t be posting [...]

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“Berries, berries, the magical fruit…”

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In Which I Tell My Wife About My Weight Loss Blog

Amy,
Do you remember back in January when we were talking about the weight I had lost and you asked me what was making the biggest difference in my success? What I told you was, to put it simply, eating less and exercising more.
But there was something I didn’t tell you.
Since August of last year, almost [...]

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10 Delicious DIY Salad Dressings

Who Needs No-Fat, Store Bought Salad Dressing?
Last week we gave you Mark’s 2 Minute Salad recipe and while we learned that many of you are already heartily digging into a big bowl of the good stuff each day (or Kitchen Sink/Really Righteous/Primal salad as various readers have dubbed it) there was still a question as [...]

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Is a Vegan Detox Right For You?

After Oprah tried her vegan detox, suddenly, this became a very popular way to lose weight and start feeling better. However, it is definitely not for everyone. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why this detox can be very beneficial and why it may not be the best avenue you need to [...]

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Dear Mark: Best Fruit Choices

Dear Mark,
Right now there are so many kinds of fruit in season at the local farmers’ market. I know that we should limit fruit consumption and that some fruits offer more nutrition and higher antioxidants than others. I live alone and can’t afford to fill my small fridge with 20 different kinds of [...]

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Weekly Roundup: July 20th Edition

How is your Sunday going? Are you looking to play a little golf or go fishing? Perhaps if your like my sister, you’ll spend the day sitting down with a good book.
This week from the Fitness Health Network:

It’s hot, the sun is shining, and you’re in need of SPF protection. [...]

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Time for a recommitment - to weight loss

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Fat-Oxidation Damage Control

There’s More to Pairing than Taste
Earlier this week we watched Mark make his signature salad: a veritable cornucopia of vegetable wonder (and anti-oxidant powerhouse). We’ve also heard Mark talk about his personal penchant for a good glass of red wine (another bearer of anti-oxidant goodness). It seems we primal types can’t get enough of those [...]

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Unrestricted Low-Carb Diet Wins Hands Down

Dig In
The New England Journal of Medicine has just come out with perhaps the most definitive comparison of low-fat, Mediterranean and low-carb diets ever, and the findings dovetail very nicely with what we’ve been discussing here recently about the merits of the Primal Blueprint. I think it also addresses some of the concerns shared about [...]

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On the Problems of Cultivated Fruit

Almost Too Perfect
Though many of us here tend to frequent farmer’s markets or CSA co-ops for a lot of our regular shopping, we inevitably end up at the grocery store for a few miscellaneous things. Comparing the experiences of the market versus “super”-market has become an interesting exercise in consumer research. Besides the strange and [...]

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Retrain Those Taste Buds

One of the biggest problems for many people on diets is that the food simply doesn’t taste good. It’s very hard to stay motivated on your diet when you feel like you’re eating cardboard and bad cardboard at that. After years of indulging in your favorite fatty foods, your palate and taste buds have been [...]

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2 Minute Salad

Most readers here understand the concepts behind the Primal Blueprint, but some seem to be concerned about the amount of time it must take to prepare PB-style meals every day. Nothing could be further from the truth. My 4-egg breakfast or protein shake take but a few minutes. My evening lamb-chop or grass-fed porterhouse with [...]

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One Goal Down

The first goal in my goals for this week was to record 100% of everything I ate today. Mission accomplished:
Breakfast
2 egg omelet with avocado, mushrooms and a little smoked provolone. (531 calories)
12oz Spicy V8 (75)
16oz decaf coffee with 2 sugars at McDonalds (for the commute) (30)
Morning Snack
Banana (105)
Lunch
Small bowl Thai Curry soup with no [...]

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Dear Mark: Low Energy on Primal Challenge

Dear Mark,
I’m finding that I have low levels of energy in the evenings only. Could this be because my body is still adapting to primal living and adjusting to less carbohydrate intake? How long does this usually last? I’m also finding that after my sessions of intense Muay Thai training, I don’t have the [...]

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Weekly Roundup

Welcome to the Sunday roundup. I hope everybody has had a good weekend so far and that you are all staying healthy and fit.
Check out my Trophy Jack Crevalle.  Sf Boater is paying for fish stories with pictographic evidence.  Tell everyone you know about my trophy catch.  If it gets the most unique visitors out [...]

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Watermelon a Natural Viagra?

Juicy.
A study by researchers at the Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center at Texas A&M University suggests that watermelon may act as a natural version of the erectile dysfunction (ED) drug Viagra.
The Food of Lust?
While researchers have always been aware of watermelon’s high citruline content, studies had suggested that the bulk of the chemical was in [...]

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What is Your Biggest Health/Fitness Vice?

This is the closest I’ve gotten to the start of a meme, where Fit36 started this meme by tagging Andrew who tagged me.
Fit36’s vices are eating out at lunch and tequila. Andrews exercise vice had been having his exercise plans fizzle out (but he is past that now as evidenced by now being a [...]

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Is All Chocolate Created Equal?

One of My Favorite Sensible Vices
My wife and I tend to receive a lot of chocolate, usually as holiday or dinner party gifts. Friends and business associates know we’re not dessert people but that we indulge in chocolate and red wine on occasion (i.e. those Sensible Vices). As a result, I’ve gotten to try a [...]

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3 Ways to Avoid Middle Age Weight Gain

For years, many people have labored under the impression that middle aged weight gain is inescapable. Middle aged spread as it is commonly called is usually accepted as just hormonal, especially for women, and many people don’t take the steps that can actually prevent it. While there are some factors that can make you [...]

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The Context of Calories

200 Calories is 200 Calories. Right?
“What’s that in the road ahead?”
vs.
“What’s that in the road!? A head!?”
Context is important.
Many people think weight loss is simply about cutting calories. But context counts here, too. Calories do have context and that’s what I want to explore today. Is a calorie from fat the same as a calorie [...]

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Top 10 Summer Vegetables

While the wild world of global trading means that we now have access to many fruits and vegetables year round, somehow fruits and vegetables just taste better when you purchase them in season and literally days after its been picked!
The following is a list of vegetables (and a couple fruits that couldn’t be missed!) that [...]

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Dear Mark: Primal Compromises for Athletes

Post-Marathon Carb Mountain
I’ve been getting a slew of emails lately from marathon runners and other endurance athletes among our group, many in response to our 30-Day Primal Health Challenge. Questions have run the gamut but generally get at how to combine endurance training and Primal Blueprint methodology:
How do I combine a low carb diet with [...]

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Primal Breakfast Suggestions for People on the Go

The all-American breakfast smorgasbord: cold cereal of every variety (from super colon blow to candy coated balls of sugar in the shape of the latest cartoon fad), toast, toaster strudel, bagels, croissants, donuts, coffee cake, pop-tarts, French toast, pancakes, blintzes, crepes, waffles, muffins, scones, hash browns, oatmeal, breakfast bars, breakfast squares, and now even breakfast [...]

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Weekly Update - 7/6/2008

Diet starting weight: 295
Week starting weight: 279
Today’s weight: 277
Week weight loss: 2 lbs
Total weight lost: 18 lbs

I should have known better than to think I’d be able to have a perfect week this week, especially with parties to attend on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I probably better stick with one day at a time [...]

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Reader Response: Alternatives to Grains? What about Quinoa?

KEEN-WAH
The Definitive Guide to Grains post last month got people talking about alternatives to the traditional rice, potato, and breads that load up the typical American dinner plate. For some, gluten is the major consideration. For others, it’s the glycemic load itself. While the Primal Blueprint recommends avoiding grains and higher glycemic foods altogether, at [...]

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How to Eat Healthy Without Feeling Deprived

By far, the most common r