For two years I was a rock. I exemplified the paleo/primal lifestyle. I killed my own food, ran barefoot, cooked in cast iron, and encourage others to get healthy. I lead by example and was easy to criticize anyone who did not follow. That’s what kills me now. I am no longer that perfect example, I am the now the one I used to criticize or as some people call it, NORMAL. 

Somethings I’ve noticed in the past six months or so:

• Put on a few pounds of fat
• Injuries 
• Not training as much (See above)
• Been getting sick
• Loss of energy
• Consumption of sugar (Almost uncontrollably) 
• Feeling Week
• actually TRYING to lose weight
• and, of course, depression

The biggest contributor to all this is STRESS. Fucking Stress! I never really realized how damaging it can be to your body or how much it can effect your entire life. You would think that my life is pretty stress free. I don’t have very many responsibilities. I make decent money and don’t have to work that much for it. I don’t chase bad guys or fight fires for a living. I don’t stay up at all hours of the night working. Yet my body is giving me all sorts of signs that I am stressed. 

Now I know what you are thinking, “What about all the herbs you take? Aren’t they supposed to make you healthier?”

Well, they are and that’s the problem. My herbal regimen has giving me the strength to deal with feelings I have suppressed for 10, 20, and 30 years. I have never addressed any of these issues, EVER! Now that my body is supported, it has the strength to deal with some of this crap and trust me, there is a lot of crap, 39 years worth. Anyway, dealing with these issues is taking it’s toll on my body. This is where getting sick and loss of energy comes into play. To compensate for this my body may have been craving more sugar. To me, that’s strike three and where the stress starts in. 

You see, I am a pillar of health, right? I look good, eat well, am never sick, and share all of this with all of you. But then all of this started happening and I started to feel the pressure of failing to be this awesome paleo guy. This added more stress and so more stress related symptoms ensued. It’s just one big effing snowball right now. 

This snowball needs to be stopped in it’s tracks and this confession is where I start. As soon as I hit “publish” I will have take a huge step towards living as stress free as possible. 

Now I know I can alleviate a lot of these symptoms by cutting out the sugar but I can’t give it up without addressing the reason why my body wants it so much. I want to cut it off at the source not bite the bullet and will power my way through it. I have heard will power doesn’t work and now I see why. Anything you do with pure will power is only temporary. 

I don’t only want to look good. I want to be better. So from this moment on I will concentrate more on feeling better and less about how I look. 

This past weekend we had bacon wrapped dates. What is your favorite thing to wrap bacon around?

In order to better explain the importance of a balanced Omega-3/Omega-6 ratio to my girl I had to do a little more research. I was lucky enough to immediately come across this great article. You can get the gist by reading the excerpt below but if you have time I recommend reading the whole article. 

Why is it so important to strike a balance between the levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fats in our body? Study showed that an out-of-balance diet that is high in omega-6 fatty acids disrupts the balance of pro- and anti-inflammatory agents in the body, promoting chronic inflammation and elevating the risk of health problem such as asthma, allergies, diabetes and arthritis.

It turned out that omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids both utilize the same enzymes and transport systems to produce biochemicals in our body. When there are more omega-6 fats, greater amounts of inflammatory compounds will be created, and lesser enzymes will be available for omega-3 fats to create chemicals that are anti-inflammatory. What’s even more shocking is that high levels of omega-6 fatty acids can actually replace and reduce omega-3 fats.

In other words, omega-3 and omega-6 fats compete with one another in our body, and the presence of one greatly affects the behavior of the other. Although omega-6 fatty acids are essential for good health, when they cross a certain level, researchers believe that is when they start to edge out omega-3 fats and diminish their benefits.

What does this mean to you? Picture this: If your diet is low in omega-3 fats to begin with, and most of your foods are predominantly prepared with soybean, sunflower, safflower, corn or cottonseed oil, then you are essentially fueling an inflammatory factory even though you may be eating the so-called ‘healthy’ foods!

To win this balancing act, let us first understand more about omega-3 and omega-6 fats.

The source of this excerpt, www.theconsciouslife.com , is not a paleo resource but it’s funny how talk about improving ones health properly can very easily sound paleo. I will be bookmarking this website.