After a healthy high school sports career (swimming, water polo, and cross-training), I went off to college and found that, like many people, I had a much harder time exercising without a tight practice schedule and all the camaraderie that goes with being part of a team. I made occasional forays to the gym and played some pickup ball now and then, but by 21 or 22, I was caught in the perfect storm of a backwards sleep schedule, way too many available calories, and a general lack of discipline (I was a largely self-supervising researcher at the time, and it turned out I was not a very strict boss!).

The “before” photo was taken during a family trip to Big Sur in 2003, and it definitely embarrassed me into action (that, and being invited for a run by the cute girl in my creative writing class). Having found the motivation I was looking for, I started running, first 1-2 miles, then 3-4, then 5, 6, 7, and immediately took off weight. I also began to get much more serious about vegetables, and took advantage of the local fish market to get hefty servings of Omega-3s. However, I was still stuck in some of the classic fallacies of modern diet and exercise: thinking that more distance meant better health, and that caloric balance was a simple, zero-sum game – i.e., eat all the pasta you want as long as you run it off. This continued for a few years. By mid-2006, I was in decent shape, but spending too much time at my desk and increasingly susceptible to the many burrito options in San Francisco. I had given up running due to severe knee pain, but had not yet learned the value of high-intensity, high-variation exercise.

Then, in the fall of 2006, a friend told me about a new approach that drew inspiration from the caveman lifestyle, and pointed me to Art de Vany and eventually, Mark’s Daily Apple. As I got more and more serious about The Primal Blueprint, I found that not only was I losing weight, getting stronger, and feeling more physically and mentally energetic, but the chronic colds and sinus infections that I had always accepted as a fact of life stopped getting me. I did not get sick once in 2007, and in September of that year, I did something I could never have imagined doing a few years prior: swimming the Golden Gate. In true Primal fashion, no wetsuits allowed!

Now, I’m 27 and a solid 5’8?, 160 lbs. In addition to eating Primal, I’ve been incorporating intermittent fasting and find it to be another valuable tool for keeping myself in balance and focus. I still have a way to go, but I’m enjoying the journey every step of the way. Thanks Mark!

Gabe

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