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Almost everyone has at least one dietary restriction. Maybe your religion or cultural traditions prohibit specific foods or food pairings. Maybe your physiological response to certain foods—an allergy or intolerance—prevent you from eating them. Or perhaps your immediate goals preclude a food’s inclusion in your diet.

Like every other diet, keto is already circumscribed by basic principles, which can make further limitations difficult to accommodate. But the benefits of going keto, at least for part of the time, are well-established and worth the effort. You want to do it. How can you go keto while honoring your own dietary bounds?

It depends on the restriction.

Dairy

This is a tough one. Dairy is one of the most reliably healthy sources of fat available, repeatedly showing strong and consistent links to good cardiovascular and overall health. Many keto adherents rely heavily upon it. We cook our eggs and veggies in butter. We treat ourselves with Greek yogurt. We take our stevia with coffee and cream. Dairy is just a great way to get calcium, healthy fat, and probiotics. What to do without it?

Make sure you know what part of dairy you can’t handle.

If you can’t handle lactose, you can probably do hard cheeses (like pecorino romano), well-fermented yogurt or kefir (the lacto bacteria consume the majority of the lactose), butter, cream, ghee, and pretty much everything but fluid milk or softer, runnier cheeses. Those dairy foods are pretty much fat and/or protein with very little lactose. The most severely sensitive may have to cut out everything but ghee.

If you can’t handle dairy proteins, cheese and yogurt/kefir are out. Depending on the severity, cream and butter may be out too. Again, ghee is still pretty safe in this situation. Casein intolerance is far more prevalent than whey intolerance, so even if you can’t eat yogurt, cottage cheese, cheese, and other high-casein foods, you may be able to do ricotta or whey protein.

How to Replace Cream?

Nut milks are a decent replacement, but they often come loaded with additives, sweeteners, and are almost always low-fat. A good way around this is to find a nut milk without sweeteners or additives and whisk in some powdered coconut oil or MCT oil powder. In times where I’ve run out of cream for my coffee, a couple scoops of MCT powder whisked into whatever nut milk I have lying around is a great approximation. Sometimes I even prefer that. Straight up coconut milk or cream also work well.

How to Replace the Calcium In Dairy?

Canned sardines. Leafy greens, shmeafy greens. The best way to get calcium without dairy is through dietary bone, and canned bone-in sardines are a great way to do it. (Still eat leafy greens, just don’t rely on them for calcium.)

How To Replace the Probiotics?

Eat fermented veggies like sauerkraut, kimchi, real pickles. Take a quality probiotic like Primal Probiotics. And as I mentioned before, you may actually be able to tolerate fermented dairy.

How To Replace the Fats?

Nuts are a handy snack to have around. They’re nutrient-dense, even the ones high in linoleic acid aren’t as bad as eating soybean oil, since nuts come with phytonutrients and micronutrients that protect the fragile fats from oxidation. They’re often rich in sometimes-hard-to-obtain minerals, like selenium in Brazil nuts, manganese in hazelnuts, or magnesium in almonds. And a little known fact is that almonds and pistachios are incredibly rich sources of prebiotic fiber that’s great at increasing butyrate production and improving gut health; that can be hard to find while remaining low-carb.

If you’re allergic to Brazil nuts and walnuts but almonds and cashews are fine, this section doesn’t really apply; just eat the nuts you can safely eat and avoid the ones you can’t. 

How To Replace the Rest…

How to replace the selenium? Eat wild salmon and other wild-caught seafood, pastured eggs, canned sardines. If you’re really adventurous, start eating beef kidney.

How to replace the manganese? Eat shellfish, especially mussels. Another option is pumpkin seeds.

How to replace the magnesium? Eat spinach.

How to replace the prebiotic fiber? Get yourself some resistant starch, which also stimulates butyrate production. Good keto sources include green bananas (the resistant starch has yet to convert to digestible glucose, so don’t worry about the carbs) and raw potato starch. Many other low-carb plants offer prebiotic fiber as well, like garlic, leeks, and Jerusalem artichokes.

How to replace the easy snack? Jerky, hardboiled eggs, cold chicken legs, smoked salmon, and coconut butter are all good options.

Stop snacking. Snacking should be an elective activity. That’s the goal of going keto—the ability to thrive on our own body fat in between meals. We shouldn’t be so ravenous throughout the day that we keep a satchel full of snacks on our persons.

Eggs

Eggs are great for most people. They contain all the nutrients you need to build an organism, like cholesterol. They’re quick and easy to cook. They go with almost everything. They’re rich in important micronutrients that keto dieters really need to process fat, like choline. The nutrients they do contain, like vitamin D, tend to be more bioavailable than other sources. And they have a great ratio of protein to fat.

But they’re also a common allergen. Many people with the allergy have expressed difficulties making keto work.

First, make sure you’re allergic to or intolerant of the entire egg. Many people are only sensitive to the egg white. If that applies to you, it may be possible to safely enjoy egg yolks (which is where most of the nutrition is anyway). To be even safer, you can puncture the yolk sac, squeeze out the innards, and discard the sac.

How To Replace the Easy Breakfasts?

Eat some combination of bacon, smoked salmon, olives, cheese, Greek yogurt. Try a Turkish breakfast, with olives, cheese, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Eat non-traditional breakfast items, like burger patties with avocado, steak and greens, lamb chops with mushrooms sautéed in the lamb fat.

How To Replace the Choline?

Get acquainted with liver. Liver paté is a delicious, high-fat way to eat the stuff.

How To Replace the Cholesterol?

You don’t necessarily have to replace it. Your liver is probably quite adept at manufacturing it. However, folks engaged in strength training can probably use the extra cholesterol to produce sex hormones like testosterone. Shrimp, liver, and shellfish are solid sources of cholesterol.

How To Replace the Bioavailable Vitamin D?

Take supplements and (of course) sunlight. Eat cod liver oil, sardines, salmon roe, or wild salmon.

Coconut

Coconut isn’t that common an allergy in the general population, but coconut’s prominence in paleo/Primal/keto circles tends to expose those that are allergic or sensitive rather quickly.

But you don’t actually need to eat coconuts or coconut fat on a ketogenic diet. You don’t need to replace coconuts with anything special. They aren’t particularly high in any specific nutrients you can’t get elsewhere. Sure, the medium chain triglycerides are ketogenic fats, meaning they promote the production of ketone bodies, and that can be helpful. You know what else is ketogenic? Going keto, getting fat-adapted, consuming your own body fat.

There is one major downside: Thai curries will be difficult to make without coconuts. That’s why you turn to Indian cream or yogurt-based curries instead.

Gluten

You’re not really worrying about this, are you?

That’s it for today, folks. I hope those of you with food restrictions feel empowered and enabled to do keto—because you should. It’s completely doable.

And for the vegetarians out there, I’ve got a post dedicated to you and keto in the works, so stay tuned.

Now For the Giveaway…

Since we’re on the subject of dietary restrictions and selectivity, I’m giving away two products that can help anybody—regardless of eating plan—enjoy good Primal food. One random commenter will receive both products.

The Primal Kitchen Cookbook, released just last summer, features 130 mouth-watering recipes that span the sub-interests of everything from keto to vegan, Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) to Whole30®. Each recipe is labeled with icons with this information as well as macronutrient profiles. The cookbook, a fun collaboration with 50 leaders in the ancestral health sphere, offers fresh ideas for every meal and every kitchen skill level. I know I use mine all the time. I made sure it had some of my favorites, in fact.

But that’s not all today. Why not add a little more cowbell?

For that same random winner, I’m also giving away a Primal Kitchen® Advanced Whole30 Kit. With both of our popular mayos, a bottle of our buttery and versatile Avocado Oil, and our five Whole30 compliant dressings (including our new Balsamic), this kit offers big inspiration and convenience—all without any sugar, alcohol, grains, legumes, dairy or unhealthy additives.

I’ll choose a random winner from this post’s comment section. Comment before midnight tonight (1/9/18 PST) to be eligible.

And I’m looking for your thoughts today. What health conditions and healing protocols are you looking for more information on? A particular autoimmune disorder? A particular food allergy? The road back from damage of a specific disease or condition? Whether you’re asking for yourself or a friend, I’d love to hear your interests. Thanks for stopping by today, everyone.

Also, if you have any other questions on the restrictions I talked about today (or others), feel free to leave a comment below!

The post How to Do Keto with Dietary Restrictions (and a Giveaway) appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

Contrary to popular belief, strength training doesn’t require heavy weights and expensive machines. That’s certainly one way for people to get an effective workout, but you can get quite strong and fit using just compound bodyweight movements. And even if you want more, you can always add weights later.

It’s a great start for those beginning (or reigniting) a fitness routine, but I’ve also known plenty of experienced folks who benefit from putting aside more elaborate routines and practicing the basics now and then.

As a mini-challenge, work on one per week.

The Primal Essential Movements Are As Follows:

Pushups

From a plank position (straight, rigid line from feet to head), hands flat on the ground and shoulder width apart, arms extended, fingers pointed forward, lower your body until your chest (or nose) touches the ground. Keep your core and glutes tight and a neutral spine and neck.

Simplified Progression (consecutive reps needed to progress)

1. Knee pushups (male, 50; female, 30)

2. Incline pushups (male, 50; female, 25)

Movement Mastery – male, 50 pushups; female, 20 pushups

Pullups

Keep your elbows tight, tuck your chin (try to make a double chin), retract your shoulder blades (to protect your shoulders). Without flailing or using your lower body, lead with your chest and pull your body up using an overhand grip until your chin passes the bar. When lowering, never fully protract your shoulder blades. Don’t lead with your chin; keep it tucked throughout.

Simplified Progression

1. Chair-assisted pullups (male, 20; female, 15)

2. Chin-up (inverted grip) (male, 7; female, 4)

Movement Mastery – male, 12 pullups; female, 5 pullups

Squats

With feet at or around shoulder width (whatever’s most natural) and toes either forward or pointing slightly outward, lower by pushing your butt back and out until your thighs reach at least parallel. Keep the weight on the heels and a tight, neutral spine throughout the movement.

Simplified Progression

Assisted squat (using a pole or other support object while lowering into squat) (male and female, 50)

Movement Mastery – male and female, 50 full squats

Planks

Your body is a plank, as the name suggests. You are a single cohesive unbroken body, a straight line from head to foot. Elbows/forearms and toes are your only points of contact with the ground.

Simplified Progression

1. Forearm/knee planks (male and female, two minutes)

2. Hand/feet planks (male and female, two minutes)

Movement Mastery – male and female, two minutes

For more details and videos on these movements, check out their pages on MDA: squat, pullup, pushup, plank.

Twice a week, warm up, get your body and joints warm with some light “cardio,” and engage in a total body workout using the Essential Movements. Your goal should be mastery of all four movements for three sets. Once you’ve exhausted your mastery and want more, then add some weight (weight vest, kettlebell, sandbag, barbell, etc). Otherwise, maintaining movement mastery or bumping up the rep counts will keep you fit, lean, and strong.

For more variety, check out our Workout of the Week archives, which contain all sorts of workouts that incorporate these movements and more.

The post Primal Challenge Point: Master the Primal Essential Movements appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss

Olympic-style weightlifting exercises have long been considered as the most successful sport-specific form of resistance training. Despite their complexity, derivates of the main movements have been developed in the effort to preserve their main biomechanical features – namely, the ability to generate explosive strength via the triple extension of ankles, knees, and hips from the power position – while decreasing their technicality.

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https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/

When the occasional (poorly informed) person tries to tell me that sexism doesn’t exist anymore, I sometimes ask in response:

So you think women can talk just as freely about bodily functions as men?

Typically, the response I get is an eye roll — because really, has feminism come down to women wanting equal rights at potty humor now?

Well… kind of.

It’s not just potty humor, though. The thing about sexism is that it’s sneaky — it shows up in ways that can be very difficult to see unless you’re looking for them, because that’s the nature of shame. We all work really hard to hide things that are shameful, and when it comes to being female, damn near everything is shameful.

The Shame of Female Bodily Functions

Most men generally feel entitled to burp, stink, scratch their balls, pick their noses, and just be gross in ways a woman would never feel entitled. It starts young, when boys learn that pooping, burping, and farting are hilarious, while girls grow up learning that those things are “unladylike” at best, and a form of social death at worst.

Personally when I was in high school, my brother and all of his male friends felt perfectly comfortable being gross in a thousand ways I would never have dared.

Not that I wanted to trap my friend under a blanket I had just farted in, mind you. I didn’t. I would have rather died actually, but that’s exactly the point: I would have rather died than let someone else know I had gas, while boys did things like that to each other constantly, without ever stopping to wonder if they should feel embarrassed by the noises and smells their bodies made.

At the time, I figured that men’s open urinal situation meant that peeing isn’t private, so if a guy comes out of a bathroom stall, everyone knows what he was in there doing, while the privacy of a girl’s bathroom stall means she can — and should — always keep up a facade of being clean, quiet, and never disgusting.

The same is true for a wide variety bodily functions — men feel safe being “gross” (read: human) while women feel they need to hide and suppress it. It might be in part because boys are taught that it’s in their nature while girls are taught these things are crude and unseemly, but I suspect it’s also because men are not seen as sexual objects, while women are. Sexual objects are supposed to be there for one thing and one thing only, and it’s definitely not to be human or have gas.

The Shame of Female Genitals and Sexuality

Men can look down and see (and touch) their genitals from a young age. They are also often exposed to the genitals of other men in locker rooms and other semi-naked spaces periodically, and they grow up knowing the right words for their genitals.

Plus, people of all genders more or less know how to get a guy off sexually, and what it looks like when he finishes.

Women, on the other hand, can’t see our genitals at all unless we get a hand mirror down there, and even then the vast majority of our sexual organs are hidden inside our bodies. A heterosexual woman is unlikely to ever see another woman’s genitals unless it’s in porn or some Google search gone horribly awry, so we have very little exposure to the extraordinary diversity of vulval shapes, sizes, colors, and textures.

At the same time, for decades, advertisers everywhere have tried to convince us that a vagina should smell like flowers and taste like spring water, in an effort to get us to buy more stuff, which leads a lot of women to believe that there is something wrong or gross about their natural state.

Plus, since the vulvas in porn are pretty homogenous (hairless, symmetrical, bleached, and representative of the popular “clamshell” look created by plastic surgery), many of us end up feeling an enormous amount of shame and insecurity about the way our own genitals look, feel, smell, sound, and taste.

Not to mention the fact that we don’t even learn the accurate names for things. Most of us were taught that boys have penises while girls have vaginas, but the vagina is technically the birth canal inside the body. The external part we can see when we grab a hand-mirror is actually called the vulva, which includes the inner and outer labia (lips) as well as the clitoris.

This common mislabeling means that when a woman talks about her own genitals, she often inaccurately refers to the whole package down there as a “vagina,” essentially erasing the entire external part — the part that gives women the most sexual pleasure and gratification.

Now this might all seem very silly and nitpicky, but it’s not.

The shame, mystery, and silence surrounding a woman’s genitals is an extension of the shame, mystery and silence around female sexual desire, arousal, and pleasure.

We are still taught that sexual desire and pleasure are a male’s domain, and that our role in sex is at best decoration, and at worst to resist men’s advances in order to preserve our virtue. We never learn the name of our own genitals, how our bodies are designed to change with arousal, or what we need to orgasm.

This epic silence on female genitals and sexuality is part of the reason the majority of women either think they don’t like sex, think there’s something wrong with them, or experience some other kind of shame around their sex lives.

The Shame of Bleeding

Want more proof that everything about being female is a shameful secret? Let’s talk about how, despite the fact that most people know that women bleed from their vaginas every month, there is still a tangible veil of secrecy and embarrassment about periods.

Ever notice how commercials for pads and tampons only use a thin blue liquid to demonstrate how their products work, instead of anything even approximating period blood?

That’s because our society cannot handle female menstruation. Despite the fact that for something like 40 years, most women experience big shifts in energy, mood, discomfort, pain, appetite, creativity, and mental focus as we shed our uterine linings through our vaginal openings, our periods are still considered gross, embarrassing, and something we have to hide.

This means that on top of the physical and emotional discomfort of menstruation, we also have to do the emotional labor of hiding, suppressing, medicating, and ignoring our monthly cycle.

We hide our tampons in our sleeves or boots on the way to the bathroom. We blame ourselves for being lazy when our bodies ask us to slow down. We apologize for being “crazy” when we experience mood swings, we use euphemisms like “Aunt Flo is in town,” and we all smile and pretend the blue liquid commercials aren’t completely ridiculous

The Shame of Not Smiling

If a man is having just an absolute shit day and doesn’t smile, nobody will bat an eyelash, think he’s incompetent, or attack his character. Men are allowed — even encouraged! — to be brooding and serious, if not even outright irritable and unhappy [1]. People typically still rate an unsmiling man as powerful, intelligent, professional, and competent.

But a woman who doesn’t smile bucks a centuries-old standard of femininity, and is seen as bitchy, cold, unprofessional, incompetent, and unlikable. A woman must appear happy in order to be “likable,” and this is of primary importance in assessing her character, performance, or capacity for a particular role.

What all of this means is that a woman cannot simply move through life smiling when she’s actually happy, and otherwise appearing neutral. That would undoubtedly cost her opportunities, respect, money, and connections. Neutral is never enough for a woman; in fact, being anything other than happy is another shameful secret that must be kept.

No matter what’s getting in the way of a woman being genuinely happy and smiling (from struggling with mental illness, to having her period, to being uncomfortable with the way her boss is talking to her) she must always put in the effort to appear happy and smile, so that the people around her will be comfortable, thus safeguarding her job, position, and social safety.

Why is Shame So Inherent to the Experience of Being a Woman?

I’m hoping you can see by now how much time, effort, and energy most women put into hiding the many shameful secrets that come from simply being female.

Think about every shameful “flaw” we’re encouraged to fix or hide about our faces and bodies, too. Women are pressured to get rid of our body hair, lengthen our legs with heels, smooth our shape with spanx, hide our cellulite, push our breasts up and together, make sure our hair meets eurocentric beauty standards, keep our nipples hidden, cover up our acne, tone our muscle, contour our faces, suck in our tummies, and diet, diet, diet.

The natural state of our bodies is considered unacceptable, unfinished — something to be fervently fixed and controlled.

Why is this? Is it because our bodies reflect something too wild and human about us? After a lifetime of being taught to be polite, pretty, happy, helpful, and “good,” does the natural state of our bodies, faces, and hair give away the fact that we can never truly be tamed? That we’re far too complex and three-dimensional to be boiled down into sex objects?

Or is it just that secrecy breeds shame, and shame breeds secrecy?

I’m inclined to think it’s all of the above, which is actually great news! If the secrecy and shame that surround the real experience of being a woman is upheld only because we’ve all somehow agreed to keep it as such, then we can all take immediate action to improve things.

Begin by identifying which “secrets” you spend time, effort, or energy on hiding: what do you feel embarrassed by, or mortified by the thought of other people finding out? Question yourself — where did you get the idea this particular thing is shameful, or needs to be kept hidden? How true is that, really? What are you afraid would happen if you were honest or upfront about this? And how even true is that?

For a lot of the items listed in this article, there are several baby steps we can take toward breaking the silence and removing the stigma from the experience of being a woman.

What if you started referring to female genitalia loud, proud, and accurately for example? Personally I use the word “vulva” as often as possible, and I hold the people around me accountable for the same!

What if you stopped hiding your tampons, and called out anyone who suggests that it’s making them uncomfortable? What if you stopped wearing spanx or stopped sucking your belly in, and walked around refusing to let the roundness of your belly be a shameful secret? What if you learned to fart in front of your partner despite feeling embarrassed?

If every woman started challenging the legitimacy of these shameful secrets, breaking her silence on them, and personally dismantling them with her actions, then we could all help set each other free, and move closer to true equality together.

Reference

1. Tracy, J. L., & Beall, A. T. (2011). Happy guys finish last: The impact of emotion expressions on sexual attraction. Emotion, 11(6), 1379-1387. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0022902

The post Why is Everything Such a Shameful Secret? appeared first on Girls Gone Strong.

Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss

Day 278 of 360

Positional and mechanical improvement:

Transitioning fluidly from one movement to another, into and out of a lift, and/ or from side-to-side are vastly overlooked aspects of general kettlebell lifting; Their value, in our opinion, cannot be overstated.

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Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss

Day 276 of 360

Climb to a new 2RM using warm-up sets of no more than 5 reps (starting at no more than 60%) before adjusting weight. Rest as needed, and keep total number of post-warm-up lifts under 20 (Ex. 5, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2… ).

Note: Achieving a 2RM is not done at all cost of mechanics, form, range of motion, or composure. Unless there’s money on the line, position, execution and range of motion always govern weight.

Then:

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Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss

Your health is your most valuable resource. Unfortunately, society provides precious little guidance to improve it, and in fact creates tremendous pressure toward physical incapacity, disease, and mental angst. In a world where we dogmatically revere neutrality, those who take a stand will win the day, and the only ones doing it are small but powerful groups of insidious, brilliant manipulators.

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http://www.thealternativedaily.com/

After a wonderful sex session with your partner (or indeed, after a fairly terrible one), it can be tempting to roll over and snooze. Or, who knows, maybe even read or rush off to work. But hold your horses, women! There are a few things you should probably take care of first. Most of these […]

Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss

Chicken and turkey are popular for being high in protein and low in saturated fats making a meal time staple for athletes as well as in many healthy eating households. Falling back on the same old recipes starts to become mundane and a little too routine.

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Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss

For years, when a new prospect came to us, my coaches and I would spend our energy trying to sell them on CrossFit: the movements they would learn and the workouts they would do. 

We would sit down with them and go through our ‘what is fitness’ speech. Then we would explain the concepts of training constantly varied, functional movements at a high intensity, and we would talk about the 10 general physical skills that would improve their training.

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