Primal Primer 1 (Nutrition)
Life is hard. And it has been harder. Reality at times may have been unfathomably terrifying and unpleasant for our ancestors. It isn’t hard to imagine the necessary software the brain evolved to distort reality in efforts of retaining some sort of peace of mind and motivated spirit despite hardship and death; survival likely did not allow for rest, processing, or therapy. It can be surmised that select humans who could thrive in adversity and senseless nature of chance, were the ones who passed genetic material to future generations. We posit that human brainware has the ability to self author defense mechanisms that shield from reality in efforts of keeping the feet moving. This same brainware now employed in the comfort of 21st century is undoubtably serving to obscure the reality of mental and physical disfunction and perhaps propagating them.
We must acknowledge our bias. Innately, we are terrible at estimating probabilities and worse at objective measure. It is imperative to crowdsource reality in efforts of knowing thy numbers: tools must be used in establishing true baselines in all things we do (initially).
Utilize tools both modern and ancient in assessing your numbers: fuel (macros), activity (training), progress (scale & clothes fit) and mentality (learning): what is measured gets managed.
Tools For Measurement
- Garmin – Watch that assists in assessing sleep, activity, HRV (heart rate variability: key in rating recovery) and overall caloric burn of activities.
- Whoop Strap – Band and phone app that provides scores based off activity, sleep, recovery (HRV), caloric burn, while providing recommendations for the following day based off initial 30 day average. Accessible monthly and longer term assessment are made available for reviewing trends. Community rating is also effective in establishing more competitive baselines (can join an age group or sport related group for comparisons).
- Myplate – Many app based food trackers will help attain ideas on the total macros one consumes daily. The scan bar reader instantaneously provides all macros, while a search for commonly eaten foods can be loaded.
- Notebook / Phone Notes / Magnetic Dry Erase – Back to basics, but convenient ways of tracking macros and journal feelings, learnings, and philosophies.
~Cave Implementation~
Know Thy Numbers. Metric everything initially: Fitness, Mentality, and Nutrition. It is imperative to establish objective truths and baselines for making meaningful adjustments and optimizations. From knowing your numbers you can train to intuit them. “Numbers to leave numbers”: obtain various tools to assist in knowing your numbers and shortcuts in assessing / adjusting depending on purpose. Find what works for you and establish baselines. Once objective measurements are made, one can leave numbers (although it is recommended to revisit periodically) as training to know your numbers you can learn the skill of intuiting them.
