Welcome
Hello, I’m Jonny Primal - welcome to my blog!
I’ve started this blog because I feel very strongly about how people of the western world are being misled by Conventional WISDOM in both healthy eating and exercise.
Firstly, you DO NOT need to spend hours in the gym or running round and round a track in order to get fit and secondly, you do NOT need to eat a high percentage of carbohydrates (whether exercising regularly or not) in order to stay healthy.
In the coming days, weeks, months and years I hope to spread the word on how to live healthily and how to you can turn your life around in order to increase your chances of avoiding modern day killers such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
Who am I?
So, who am I? Good question. I’m not a doctor, nutritionist or fitness guru. In fact, 6 months prior to starting this blog I was a carb-munching, exercise-avoiding, overweight mess. Approaching 41 I had the realisation that I had not done any proper exercise for 15 years. I enjoyed McDonalds, KFC or a freshly delivered pizza on far too many occasions. Some months I probably didn’t have enough fingers to count how many times I’d ordered fast food. Something had to give.
A friend and I decided to start running. That’s healthy right? We ran round a local lake a couple of times a week and our times got faster, I dropped a bit of weight but still suffered from things like wind, indigestion and the occasional ‘dicky’ tummy where I’d find myself racing to the toilet within 30 minutes of eating my dinner. Not often. But often enough to think there was something wrong with my diet.
A friend and I decided to start running. That’s healthy right? We ran round a local lake a couple of times a week and our times got faster, I dropped a bit of weight but still suffered from things like wind, indigestion and the occasional ‘dicky’ tummy where I’d find myself racing to the toilet within 30 minutes of eating my dinner. Not often. But often enough to think there was something wrong with my diet.
By the time I turned 41 in January 2011, I’d brought my weight down from around 14 and a half stone (203 pounds or approx. 92 kg to those who’ve gone metric!) to what I thought was a respectable 14st (196 pounds). I still had love handles. I was still bigger than I wanted to be. A quick check of my BMI (score = 27) told me I was ‘prone to health risks’. The running was obviously working but I hated it. We would only run about a mile and a half, but it was 15 minutes that just seemed like utter pain. How the hell Roger Bannister ever did a mile in 4 minutes I will never know!
The Gym
But I had no choice. I hated the thought of going to the gym. Not just because of the extortionate cost (I assume £40 a month on an 18 month contract – although I have never tried to find out!) but also because I would feel out of place. Uncomfortable in my own skin (well, lycra shorts). I could imagine looking around the gym, seeing all these gleaming/tight bodies. I’d feel better if I were to spot a fat, sweaty, middle-aged man making a fool of himself, but it would take a split second to realise that it’s actually me in the mirror.
So, no gym…. And no running. What then? Enter my friend John. He tells me how he’s lost weight and gained fantastic muscle in a few shorts months, all from following a book. Better still I don’t even need to go to the gym. The book was cleverly titled “You Are Your Own Gym.” The title was like music to me ears! I am my own gym? Well I guess most gyms are big and sweaty, so yes…I AM my own gym. Within minutes of receiving his email and reading a couple of reviews, I’d ordered it via Amazon. This was it. This was going to change my life. I’d FINALLY found (well, been shown) the elixir of youth. The one single, life-saving, body honing, supercalifragifunkisexy (for the Prince fans) item that I’d been looking for. Well, not ACTIVELY looking for, obviously! OK, the one single ‘winner takes all’ item that I’d been hoping would fall in my lap (without much hard work on my part) and here it was.
So, no gym…. And no running. What then? Enter my friend John. He tells me how he’s lost weight and gained fantastic muscle in a few shorts months, all from following a book. Better still I don’t even need to go to the gym. The book was cleverly titled “You Are Your Own Gym.” The title was like music to me ears! I am my own gym? Well I guess most gyms are big and sweaty, so yes…I AM my own gym. Within minutes of receiving his email and reading a couple of reviews, I’d ordered it via Amazon. This was it. This was going to change my life. I’d FINALLY found (well, been shown) the elixir of youth. The one single, life-saving, body honing, supercalifragifunkisexy (for the Prince fans) item that I’d been looking for. Well, not ACTIVELY looking for, obviously! OK, the one single ‘winner takes all’ item that I’d been hoping would fall in my lap (without much hard work on my part) and here it was.
You Are Your Own Gym (YAYOG)
There are pages and pages devoted to the exercises and at the back of these exercises Mark lays down his 10 week plan: Three different plans for different ability levels. Obviously I started on the beginner level. It was hard, but within days I noticed changes to my body. OK, at first these changes were that it hurt to move, but those muscle pains made me realise that it was working.
The change in diet was interesting too. I dropped the junk food and even went as far as starting a spreadsheet to track my intake and breakdown of different macronutrients. I realise this was a little over the top and not particularly necessary, but at this point I wanted to ensure I got as close to his recommended breakdown of protein, carbs and fat as I could. I would eat 5-6 meals a day; Small meals, based around protein and carbs with some fat. One of those meals was a post workout whey protein shake. I kept daily calorie intake around the 1900 mark.
The change in diet was interesting too. I dropped the junk food and even went as far as starting a spreadsheet to track my intake and breakdown of different macronutrients. I realise this was a little over the top and not particularly necessary, but at this point I wanted to ensure I got as close to his recommended breakdown of protein, carbs and fat as I could. I would eat 5-6 meals a day; Small meals, based around protein and carbs with some fat. One of those meals was a post workout whey protein shake. I kept daily calorie intake around the 1900 mark.
Five weeks later and I’d dropped 7 pounds. I was no longer running and no longer eating junk. I was exercising for approximately 25 minutes, 6 nights a week. That’s actually more workouts than I needed to. The book recommends 4 or 5 nights but I was very keen for it to ‘work’. In hindsight I could have had more nights off and really it’s recommended in order for your body to recover between workout days. I’d sent the amazon link to my running buddy too and he bought the book at the same time. He too lost a similar amount of weight in the first 5 weeks.
But I felt there was more to it than balanced meals and exercise. I got hungry if I missed one of my set meal times and found myself obsessing and arranging my life around my food. This wasn’t healthy and I felt that I could not sustain this every day for the rest of my life.
There had to be more to life than this. OK, I was surely in a better position than I had been, but I had got the health and fitness bug now and started devouring information from the internet every spare minute of the day. Some of it was baloney, some of it seemed bizarre. But through it all came something very interesting.
There had to be more to life than this. OK, I was surely in a better position than I had been, but I had got the health and fitness bug now and started devouring information from the internet every spare minute of the day. Some of it was baloney, some of it seemed bizarre. But through it all came something very interesting.
Going Primal
I can’t even recall how I found it. It would perhaps have been the result of some bizarre keyword combination I’d typed into Google, but I found myself surfing the interweb and stumbling across Mark’s Daily Apple. Wow. Was this guy whacky or what? Don’t wear shoes? Eat like pre-historic man? Eat Saturated Fat? No more potato, bread, rice, pasta? WTF??
Surely he was mad. But look at his photo, is that really him? He looks amazing for someone is his 50s. He is in far better shape than me – or in fact anyone I know. He eats meat, eggs, veg, a bit of fruit and plenty of fat. Saturated fat. Now, as far as I was concerned at this point there seemed to be something a little ‘wrong’ about eating fat. Doesn’t eating fat make you fat? Or is that too obvious?
I was intrigued. I browsed his forum. Everyone seemed very positive about Mark’s concepts and ideas and there were plenty of success stories to be read. A few fruit loops in my opinion, but on the whole an eager bunch of ‘Primalists’. Thirsty for more knowledge I once again visited Amazon and bought Mark’s book, The Primal Blueprint.
I was intrigued. I browsed his forum. Everyone seemed very positive about Mark’s concepts and ideas and there were plenty of success stories to be read. A few fruit loops in my opinion, but on the whole an eager bunch of ‘Primalists’. Thirsty for more knowledge I once again visited Amazon and bought Mark’s book, The Primal Blueprint.
The Primal Blueprint
Anyhow, as I read the book, everything fell into place. This explained to me so many things about the human body, about the bio-chemical activity that goes on inside us and how what we eat really does control our body composition and level of health. I cannot do the book justice here. It is not a diet. It is a way of life. I dare you to read this book and NOT become primal (vegans and veggies are excluded from that statement).
I started following the book immediately, but continued to use YAYOG as my workout guide. In just two weeks I lost a further 7 pounds, making it a full stone (14lb) in 7 weeks. Since then I’ve not looked back, losing a further 7 pounds (lots of 7s around here I see!) which has brought me from 14 stone (196 lbs) to 12 stone 7 (175 lbs) in just 11 weeks – and in the 6 primal weeks I’ve lost 14 lbs.
Beyond The Blueprint
My hunger for nutritional advice and guidance has not ceased and I’ve been buying books faster than I can read them at the moment. I will post reviews and further information regarding these books as well as my own findings in the coming weeks so please stay tuned, stay healthy and don’t believe conventional wisdom as it will drive us all into an early grave.
I love your story. I can relate to it. There are many lies misconceptions in the health world. I recommend you follow my blog, to see great workout routines as well as diet advice.
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