Erin's Primal 'Devolution' page 3

[ErinC]

I'm stirring it up.

I participate on a forum for the fitness classes I teach (lesmills.com). Someone posted a question "Is it okay to do BodyAttack right after BodyCombat?" These are two very intense cardio classes that run for an hour each. People replied with their own takes on the 2-hour cardio extravaganza ("Oh yes, I frequently do that - and sometimes I follow it up with a spin class too!"). I offered a suggestion along the lines of poo-pooing Chronic Cardio and suggested they just do ONE class at 100% intensity and call it a night. I also included a wee smidge of education on the cortisol release and insulin imbalance associated with overtrainig, as well as the "reward eating" phenomenon that often follows. We'll see how that goes over.

Funny thing, though: I used to do those two classes back-to-back a couple of times per week. I must say I'm loving the shift in thinking with regard to exercise quantities. I spend so much less time at the gym now. It's gorgeous.

[ErinC]

Monday morning check-in.

I drank a lot this weekend. Seriously. On Friday I came home from a hectic week of work and enjoyed 2 rum n' Coke Zeroes. On Saturday, I drank a whole bottle of wine at a friend's birthday celebration. But the kicker may have been the 3(!) pints of beer I had with a friend at a pub yesterday. I LOVE beer, especially pints, especially pints at a pub and especially pints at a pub with a friend (or with a newspaper if a friend isn't readily available). Last night was a rough night in terms of "gut comfort," shall we say. I wonder if it was the grains in the beer, or if just the overall indulgence of this weekend was to blame? Funny thing - back when I was younger and much more of a "bar star" I would drink myself into a stupor on Friday AND Saturday nights (and sometimes Thursdays too!). Even though this weekend was relatively epic in terms of the alcohol intake for the Erin of Today, it's a far cry from how the Erin of Yesteryear used to pollute herself. Anyway, I just read that Leangains article that says alcohol is good for fat metabolism, so I'm going to ride that one for a little while. Ha!

This weekend I went jeans shopping because it dawned on me that the only jeans I own are skinnies, and I think I need at least one pair of bootcuts for casual days. Guess who's gone down about 1.5 jeans sizes since my last shopping trip? (Admittedly, I'm pretty cheap when it comes to buying clothes [also, I'm tall and it's just very hard to find jeans for tall chicks], so I don't go shopping THAT much. My last jeans purchase was probably October-ish. But still!

And this is all still while being relatively inactive as I recover from my back injury. It's amazing to me. I really can't wait to start sprinting and LHT-ing.

[ErinC]

*sigh* I wish I lived in California.

That's where Mark lives, right? Whenever I come onto this site, I see the pictures of him paddleboarding, sprinting on the beach, laying in the sun... it's killing me! I want to get outside and play, get my natual sunlight, go for long slow walks... but it's -40 (Celsius) with the windchill and it's been very cold like this almost all winter long. If I lived in California I bet I'd be outside a lot more. Oh, and I'd probaby have a lot more access to seasonal fruits and veggies too. I HATE WINTER!!!!!!!

Okay. I feel better.

So, I work as a writer which, until stand-up desks stop being frowned upon in the workplace, involves sitting in front of a computer all day long. I sit on a ball instead of a chair, which is good for the posture (and it's fun to bounce on when I've got writer's block and need a "brain break"). However, the lack of 'back' to lean up against also means that my back is exposed to our open concept office. I just realized my pants were riding so low in the back that I was very nearly flashing some bumcrack. So I grabbed my scissors and punched a new hole in my belt and hoisted things up...

A NEW HOLE IN MY BELT!
*cha cha cha*

[Twibble]

So, I work as a writer which, until stand-up desks stop being frowned upon in the workplace, involves sitting in front of a computer all day long. I sit on a ball instead of a chair, which is good for the posture (and it's fun to bounce on when I've got writer's block and need a "brain break"). However, the lack of 'back' to lean up against also means that my back is exposed to our open concept office. I just realized my pants were riding so low in the back that I was very nearly flashing some bumcrack. So I grabbed my scissors and punched a new hole in my belt and hoisted things up...

A NEW HOLE IN MY BELT!
*cha cha cha*

BS says that if crack kills, he's a serial killer.

Congrats!

[ErinC]

Last night I bought my first-ever jar of coconut oil. I was surpised to learn that it's solid at room temperature! It smells delish; I can't wait to cook something with it! I'm not buying into every one of the Hardcore Primal Rules, but the coconut oil thing seemed like an easy switch that would make a good difference (away from veggie/grain oils). I think my next step will be to check out the price of grass-fed meat and dairy at the expensive whole foods store.

[Sungrazer]

congrats on a new hole in the belt, and yay! for tall women.

My woman is 184 cm tall.

[ErinC]

I agree - YAY FOR TALL WOMEN!

Speaking of, I just had a related incident that I thought I should journal...

A friend of mine is 4'10". One foot shorter than me and approximately 6" shorter than "average height" for women - if we assume average height is about 5'4". At 5'10", I am 6" OVER average height. Liz and I exactly split the spectrum in terms of height relative to average.

So we were shopping yesterday and I went to try on a pair of pants. I grabbed the 12s. Liz looked at me like I was from another planet - "YOU WEAR A 12?!?!" She was shocked that I wore such a "big" size, since I'm not really a "big" girl. Liz grabbed the size 0. I didn't respond with the same shock and awe (even though I was secretly amazed that a fully-grown adult woman could fit into pants that looked like doll clothes) but I found it funny-slash-interesting. Even though she is just as far away from "average" as I am, she wins and I lose because her pants are small and mine are big.

I've been grabbing the biggest pant sizes in stores my whole life because I shot up in height at a pretty young age and stayed there (obvs). I don't even think twice about it because I know I'm way taller than average, and therefore have a larger skeleton than average, wider pelvis than average, bigger ribcage than average, etc. I wear bigger pants just like I wear bigger shoes. I barely look at the size when I'm shopping for clothes - I just grab whatever is hanging furthest back on the rack and hope for the best.

As luck would have it, I love being tall and wouldn't change it for the world. But I always think it would be neat if we could "skew" a short person while "maintaining the aspect ratio" (to use some probably-archaic graphic design terms) and see how similar or different proportions really are. Like if I took my friend and clicked-and-dragged her up and out diagonally so she was the same height as me, would her hips, ribcage, inseam, whathaveyou be comparable in size and shape to mine? Maybe I'd wear a smaller size than she does! *smile*

Ah, size obsession. What a complete and utter waste of air.

[ErinC]

A couple of things I'm struggling to reconcile -

I like the concept of barefoot training, but I feel there are some environmental idiosyncrasies that lend themselves to contradicting it.

First: Snow. Did Grok even exist in snowy climates or did the cavepeeps stick mostly to warm places? Did he walk barefoot on snow and ice, or did he maybe construct some kind of shoe-like device?

Second: Concrete. I thought I might get some VFFs or something similar and take my long walks in them once the weather warms up. There's a big park with a huge hill near my place that would make for a good walk, but in order to get to and from the park, I'd have to log a few KMs on concrete sidewalks. Grok probably didn't spend so much time walking barefoot on such a hard and unforgiving surface.


I also struggle sometimes with the logic of some of the foods we're encouraged to eat/not eat. Like, how much coconut did our paleolithic ancestors really have access to? Did legumes and starchy tubers not exist at all before agriculture came to be? My big question is grains: did they not exist in nature at all before the agricutural revolution? I mean, did man "create" grains out of thin air, or did grains exist naturally before and we just started manipulating their growth in the Neolithic era? Part of me thinks that grains must have existed during Paleolithic times and we must have eaten them (in far smaller doses, mind you), otherwise how would we have ever evolved to dream up the concept of planting, harvesting and eating them in mass quantities?

Every now and then questions like this pop into my brain. I wonder if it's just Conventional Wisdom rearing its head...

[bwhit]

They do exist, but they are annuals that generally get muscled out by perennials that establish stronger roots. Grains thrive after some type of destruction of the existing perennials like floods. I believe rice and wheat were first cultivated on river banks in China and Egypt, respectively, after flooding. Now grains rely on us to rid the fields of the other plants. And also couldn't eat grains until we learned for to refine them.

[Sungrazer]

First: Snow. Did Grok even exist in snowy climates or did the cavepeeps stick mostly to warm places? Did he walk barefoot on snow and ice, or did he maybe construct some kind of shoe-like device?

Oh, they most definitely had shoes. Even the sami people of Norway, Sweden and Finland had shoes, insulated with grass. They are called skaller (litterally means heads), and the soles of them are made from the hide of the reindeer head.

Also, the inuit had boots made from seal hide, watertight outside with no fur, and a shell inside with the fur inward. Between the shells there were also used grass for insulation. The same kind of grass used by the sami people.

Artifacts found near his body high in the Ötzal Alps of Italy suggest Ötzi died with not only his leather, grass-insulated boots on but also head-to-toe animal skins, including a fur hat, and a cape of braided grasses. (Related: "Iceman Wore Cattle, Sheep Hides; May Have Been a Herder.")

Pictures: New Iceman Is Fit, Nearly Naked

As for the rest of your questions, I don't know, but up here in the far north there weren't much other than meat, fish, mussel, birds, berries, herbs and so forth. And the waste dumps found after these prehistoric people shows that we ate a lot of fish and mussels.