There’s a lot going on at the Primal Blueprint headquarters here in Malibu, CA. I thought I’d catch you up to speed on some of the upcoming events, book releases, new Mark’s Daily Apple features, and give away a digital cookbook while I’m at it. Hold on for the ride. This is a monster announcement post…
Primal Accelerated Success Training – Manhattan Beach, Feb. 12
You may have noticed that the name “PASS” for the new Primal Blueprint seminar program has been reimagined as “PAST”. It seems more fitting somehow and I think Grok would approve. In any case, the inaugural Primal Accelerated Success Training event is just two days away. Get your tickets now and join me and other attendees in Manhattan Beach this Saturday, February 12 (tomorrow!). You’ll walk away learning all the ins and outs of the the Primal lifestyle.
Also, if you haven’t noticed (see the new PAST module […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

I just added a donation button to my site because readers have been asking for it; in comments, PMs, emails and so forth. I’m temped to say that it’s almost by request, but honestly the only reason it wasn’t up before was because I didn’t know if anyone would be interested in donating. I tend to be a bit cynical when it comes to people’s generosity. Well, it turns out I was wrong, and quite a few people have already donated.
After having read literally hundreds of emails and comments on my FB wall, I know that people are appreciative of the work I’ve done and found it very valuable. Life changing, even. A few of you might ask yourselves what’s so “life changing” about my writings on diet and training. If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re lucky enough to not have been stuck in the confined pattern of constantly worrying […]

Original post by noreply@blogger.com (Martin Berkhan)

The Q:
Hey just wondering what’s your take on people who have claimed to gain something like 40 pounds of muscle in a year as a beginner? I guess that would be “wet” muscle as apposed to dry muscle maybe that would be the difference? Just curious…
My A:
Great question,
A lot of it has to do with Juvenile muscle growth, or just young growth in general (I explored this when writing Anabolic Again).
If you look at standard height and weight growth curves, men are expected to gain about 20 pounds between the ages of 16 and 20 (they also gain a couple inches in height).
Add in weight training during this same time and you can see where people get close to 40 pound claims.
The other things is that since lean body mass is related to height, these larger claims also come from taller people.
Gaining 15 pounds of muscle […]

Original post by Brad Pilon

They’re moments when the rest of the world – even consciousness itself – recedes into an unperceived periphery. Seemingly outside the progression of time, detached from the bounds of physical need, you fade past existence into immersion. The self quietly falls away. You’re one with the mountain, the paint brush, the instrument, the pose, the stride, the notes, the words. If you could freeze time to capture this dasein experience, you’d witness freedom, lightness, unwitting joy.
Like Schrödinger’s cat or a faint star in the night sky, however, these moments resist direct observation. The minute we bring awareness to them, they’ve already passed. We catch them, instead, out of the corner of our eye – briefly, fleetingly, on the returning threshold of consciousness. Despite their transience, we discern their effects. We emerge changed – more content, composed.

These are flow moments of course – spells of time in which we become wholly […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

Dr. Loren Cordain and a few MD colleagues have recently published a paper (PDF) called “Organic Fitness: Physical Activity Consistent with Our Hunter-Gatherer Heritage.” It makes for a great companion piece to Primal Blueprint Fitness, and it encapsulates quite nicely the breadth of research into the physical activities of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Read the whole thing. There’s probably nothing really new to you guys already well-versed in this stuff, but it’s good having it all in one space, and it’s good having it from more sources (not just me). If someone ever asks you why you go barefoot, avoid weight machines, squat below parallel (don’t you know it’s bad for your knees!?!), go on hikes for fun without sunscreen, and hate treadmills, you can send along a nice, neat package including the PBF eBook and the Cordain paper. This isn’t a “nyah, nyah, proven right again!” type thing (well, kinda). This […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

Great question from yesterdays post:
The Q:
With specific regard to muscle and longevity, many older folks I see have problems with a) getting up out of chairs, and b) falling and breaking hips (from which they never seem to recover), so strength exercises targeted to these issues might actually be the most beneficial. What would you recommend for those issues, some form of squats?
My A:
I totally agree that muscle building should be done in a specific manner, so just like training shoulders to get bigger shoulders, it does make sense to train the lower body to keep the legs strong enough for daily activities (while this seems like a no-brainer, the specificity of muscle training seems to be a lost concept these days). However this being said, I think you have to assess each person on an individual basis. As much as I love […]

Original post by Brad Pilon

Old is not any specific age, it’s a mindset, and an ability (or lack thereof) based on what your body will allow.
I’d like to see 2100.
I’ll be 123 when it happens.
This is not impossible.
But I do have to start logically thinking about the things I am doing right now.
For instance, I have to consider the absolute beating I put on my body in the name of building muscle and being healthy.
Exercise is an important of living a long and functional life, but exercise can also be a detriment if done too excessively, or with massive injury as a consequence.
(Yes Jack Lalanne lived well into his 90’s but then George Burns lived to 100. Anecdotes are fun like that)
So being able to be ‘healthy and active’ 8 decades from now is just another reason to take pause and evalute why you do what you currently do right now.
Are there distinct measureable […]

Original post by Brad Pilon

After last week’s article many of you asked about a natural alternative to sugar and artificial sweeteners: stevia. It is widely used in the low carb community to satisfy sugar cravings or simply add a touch of sweetness to a hot beverage or dessert, but should it be? What is stevia? Is it safe? What is its effect on insulin, if any, and does it have a place in a Primal Blueprint eating strategy? Let’s investigate.
Stevia is an herbaceous family of plants, 240 species strong, that grows in sub-tropical and tropical America (mostly South and Central, but some North). Stevia the sweetener refers to stevia rebaudiana, the plant and its leaves, which you can grow and use as or with tea (it was traditionally paired with yerba mate in South America) or, dried and powdered, as a sugar substitute that you sprinkle on. It’s apparently quite easy to grow (according […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

I came across an interesting statin study the other day. It’s from last year, but I hadn’t seen it until recently. The study, entitled “Statins Do Not Decrease Small, Dense Low Density-Lipoprotein,” sought to understand the effect of statin therapy on small, dense LDL, the truly “bad” kind of “bad” cholesterol, the stuff that’s strongly associated with increased heart disease risk in many studies. We know that statins reduce LDL cholesterol – they are extremely effective at curtailing the cholesterol-synthesizing hydroxy-methyl-glutaryl-coenzyme A reductase, if you’re into that sort of thing – but their effectiveness at lowering sdLDL is unknown. They reduce the rate at which cholesterol is produced and that’s as specific as it gets.

Researchers at the Cardiovascular Center of Korea University’s Guro Hospital assembled a group of 612 heart patients, some with confirmed coronary artery disease (CAD) but most without. They were divided into two groups on the basis […]

Original post by Mark Sisson