http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

The Prize:

A year’s supply of either Primal Kitchen® Collagen Fuel or Primal Fuel plus Primal Probiotics. That’s 12 months of ultimate, low-carb, high-protein shake mix delivered right to your door—along with the restorative power of probiotics!

Primal Fuel and Collagen Fuel serve as the perfect post-workout meal replacement; curbing hunger with healthy fats, helping build and maintain muscle mass with 20 grams of whey-protein isolate (Primal Fuel) or 11 grams of grass-fed collagen protein with its unique support for healthy connective tissue, skin and hair (Collagen Fuel).

Go with Vanilla Coconut or Chocolate Coconut…or alternate between the two for either product. Winner’s choice!

The Contest:

We’re just a few days into the 21-Day Challenge, but I know many of you have seen amazing results going Primal leading up to the Challenge. Weight lost, muscle built, complexions cleared, even meds kicked. Now’s the time to share it! This means you have the opportunity to show the rest of the community who you are and what you’ve accomplished. In the process you’ll inspire thousands of people to take control of their health just as you have. I don’t know about you, but I get a kick out of that.

So for this contest I want to hear your story. Write it up and include a photo. Including both pre-Primal and post-Primal pics is even better, but not required. Don’t worry if you’re not a chiseled Adonis. This isn’t a “who’s the most ripped” competition. Whether you’ve lost 100 pounds over two years of Primal living or you’ve simply managed to kick that Diet Coke habit, just tell me what going Primal has done for you. I’m looking for interesting and personal tales. Details about your health history, how you found MDA and the Primal Blueprint, what has worked and what hasn’t, what differences you’ve seen in how you look and feel, and anything else you think readers might be able to learn from and you’re open to sharing are welcome. It doesn’t have to be a thousand word diatribe, but hopefully more than a couple paragraphs. Feel free to be creative with your story format, too. Remember, good stories usually have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and honesty is king.

I’m sure many of you have thought about sending your story in, but just haven’t gotten around to it. There is no better time than now. I’ll be featuring reader stories during the 21-Day Challenge and beyond, so get yours in soon!

Email me your story along with pictures (as large as possible). Please use the subject heading “My Primal Story.” Otherwise, there’s a good chance I may completely miss your submission.

Examples:

One of the most memorable stories published on MDA: The Unconquerable Dave. If you haven’t read it, do it now. You won’t regret it. YAWP!

View other Success Stories here for ideas on how to write your own story.

Eligibility:

Anyone in the world can enter.

Additionally, everyone who has submitted a Success Story to Mark’s Daily Apple since the last year’s Challenge is automatically entered to win, so don’t worry if you emailed me just a few days ago. You’re entered!

The Deadline:

June 25th, 2018, midnight PDT

How the Winner Will Be Determined:

An executive decision will be made to determine which stories and accompanying photos get published on MDA. The winner of the prize package above will be chosen at random from those submitted.

Save

Save

The post Contest: Submit Your Success Story! appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

You don’t need us to tell you that there are a ton of companies that make kitchen gadgets. Just take one stroll through Bed Bath & Beyond or a digital walk through Amazon and the sheer number of brands and products is just overwhelming.

To help you make sense of it all, we’ve created this list of 10 of the most-popular kitchen gadget brands and highlighted what each of the companies do best. Of course, it wasn’t easy — there are plenty of things to love from each brand. Take a look and let us know what you think.

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http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

I was 40-years-old, 205 pounds and only 5 foot 6 inches. I ate whatever I wanted. Which usually meant a sleeve of cookies, a quart of soda, a bag of gummy bears….pretty much whatever. Twelve years before I had been a slim fit Marine and had since put on 60 pounds without notice. My vision was getting bad, my sleep was never sufficient, my motivation non-existent. And obviously, my marriage suffering from my lack of interest, poor disposition and dwindling testosterone.

A few years earlier I had gone on the Atkins diet and did lose weight. But I couldn’t sustain it because my cheat days kept increasing till I was back eating junk and was even fatter than when I started.

I literally stumbled on The Primal Blueprint and took the chance, bought the book and read it. Read it like a book. Not like stereo instructions, where you skip ahead past things you “know.” The light came on. Mark’s way of explaining things clearly and directly opened my eyes. I began by eating, not starving. Eggs and sausage, real meat, fresh veggies and just walking.

Seemingly overnight my tight 34″ pants were falling off. I had no belts that worked and my XL shirts looked like ponchos. I didn’t even own a scale, so I bought one and when I stepped on it I was dumbfounded—165 pounds in less that 4 months. I needed all new clothes. Nothing fit. I lost 4″ in my waist and now wore a medium shirt. As I felt great, I wanted to work out because I could. So I left behind the body weight exercises and hit the gym weightlifting and still walking and doing sprints. I also began intermittent fasting.

Family members began asking if I was sick. I told them I felt great and was changing my eating habits and working out. When I explained it further I was told how my cholesterol was surely high and I was advised to see a doctor for blood work. Well, guess what? My blood work came back perfect.

As a side note, it was time to renew my state drivers license and the lady at the DMV made me get a new picture because I looked so different.

Skip ahead to today. I am going to be 50 next year. I am 145 pounds, 28″ waist and 38″ chest. I squat and deadlift 300+pounds and jump rope, and love going to the gym. I have to force myself to take rest days. My last blood work was a waste of time since I knew what it was going to be. Perfect! I have refined my consumption to be more seasonal. I eat loads of venison and wild boar that I hunt. Lots of caught trout, eggs and avocados, coconut oil and spinach with citrus are staples. I get about 75% of my calories from fat, 15% or so from protein and the rest from veggie based carbs. Fruit isn’t that important to me. The commercial stuff is way to sweet.

And I’m spreading the word! In fact when people get to know me and see that I’m not some crazy marathon runner or grass eater they start the conversation. They want what I have. My closest friend went from 235 pounds to 175 pounds. Five co-workers in just the last month have bought the book and are all on the way to a great life. As I type this I just got a text from one telling me his wife is down 10 pounds, and he’s down more than 15.

I’m a success story for one simple reason. Mark. I owe every bit of it to you. You literally gave me a life back. You showed me the path through the jungle of fad diets and misinformation. I will, forever, be indebted to you. There’s no doubt in my mind that had I not read The Primal Blueprint, I would be on insulin, 250 pounds, probably divorced and headed to an early grave. Instead I feel like a 20-year-old, look like a stud and and chase my wife around like a teenager!

Thanks again, Mark. Grok on , brothers and sisters!

Kellet Stephens

The post I Began By Eating, Not Starving appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

Becoming a mother has changed me in many profound ways, but there a few core things about my identity that have remained the same. Sure, things shift with the seasons and changing life demands, but ultimately I found that these things are unshakeable. One of those things for me is being an inveterate snooze button pusher.

I don’t like to wake up early.

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http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

In what we can only imagine to be an attempt to compete with Amazon Prime, Bed Bath & Beyond has launched its own membership program. It’s adorably called BEYOND+ and only costs $29 a year.

There’s just one question: Is that $29 well spent?

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http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

The shelves at Sam’s Club started looking a little different around this time last year. See, that’s when execs decided to rethink their private-label products. “At one point, we had 21 private labels,” says Chandra Holt, vice president of private brands at Sam’s Club, in a press release. “So the first thing I set out to do was to simplify for our members. We now have one private brand: Member’s Mark.”

There are all sorts of new items (more than 300 new items!), new packaging, and plenty of tried-and-true favorites. Here are some of the best Member’s Mark products, according to Kitchn staffers, shoppers, and experts who know.

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If you need more proof that butter truly makes everything better, cancel tonight’s dinner plans and make this tortellini instead. Roast halved cherry tomatoes in garlic-infused melted butter, and they’ll drink up some of that rich flavor as they soften and caramelize while the rest of the butter browns and becomes nutty.

The result is a quick tomato sauce that’s surprisingly sophisticated for so few ingredients and such minimal effort. Toss it with cheese tortellini and you’ve got an easy dinner that’s worth celebrating.

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A few years ago I heard that flaxseed oil — not vegetable oil or shortening — was the best oil for seasoning cast iron. I’d always wanted to put that theory to the test, but decided to wait until I’d sufficiently neglected my own cast iron skillets to warrant a full re-seasoning. (It was bound to happen at some point.)

That day came eventually: Thanks to my lazy maintenance, the seasoning on my 12-inch Lodge skillet had become patchy, rough, and sticky. But this time around, instead of coating it in vegetable oil and heating the pan in the oven for an hour, as is the norm, I decided to spend 18 hours baking six coats of flaxseed oil into it.

Here’s how it went.

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An empty pantry is the mother of invention, right? On a warm evening a few summers ago I promised my daughter s’mores, forgetting that I had used the marshmallows the day before for making Rice Krispies treats for a family picnic. I had the grill primed for roasting those marshmallows and panicked when I opened the pantry to find no ‘mallows in sight.

In a moment of pure desperation I threw a few of the leftover Rice Krispies treats on the hot grill and then topped the slightly charred squares with shaved chocolate. The results were nothing short of magical. The Rice Krispies treats charred slightly on the outside, making them crispier and chewier, while the interior became soft and gooey. Honestly, they didn’t even need the chocolate.

This moment of panic has since become my most beloved backyard barbecue treat and something I look forward to making again each summer.

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Kitchn’s Delicious Links column highlights recipes we’re excited about from the bloggers we love. Follow along every weekday as we post our favorites.

Here at Kitchn, you’ll frequently find us singing the praises of the foil pack dinner hack. These perfect little pouches make for a super easy clean-up so there’s more time to focus on the best part of dinner: eating. Whether you choose to bake, grill, or throw these guys over a campfire, they’ll be busting at the seams with flavor and you’re going to want to dig right in.

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