Slippery Slope: Natural Bodycare Goes Beyond Pooless

Once you start thinking about the absurdity of slathering your body with a daily dose of chemicals, it's hard to stop thinking about it.

Ditching shampoo was, for me, a gateway drug. I've moved on to eliminating most conventional skin care products from my routine, including soap, toothpaste, deodorant, and makeup.

Soap: I've used less soap than most people do for quite some time. What's wrong with a good, old-fashioned water rinse? The little soap (or soap-like substances) I use is mostly for shaving. I like Lush products, but it's worth checking them out on a site like Skin Deep because despite Lush's effective branding, some of their products are more "natural" than others.

Facial cleanser: My complexion, which improved dramatically upon removing grains and reducing dairy in my diet, looks even better now that I only cleanse my face once a day, typically to remove mascara. I use Lush for this, too.

Toothpaste: When it comes to dental health, diet (grains and sugar again!) is a significant factor. I recently took the additional step of switching from sweetened, chemical-laden Aquafresh Sensitive-Teeth Whitening to Desert Essence Tea Tree Oil & Neem toothpaste. I really like the mild flavor, and tooth sensitivity has not resurfaced as a problem.

Deodorant: This was the biggest change, for me. I've resisted natural deodorants for years for reasons similar to those that delayed my going pooless: I have a professional job that requires the wearing of professional clothes. Women's professional clothes, as you may have noticed, aren't generally well-suited (punny!) to antiperspirqnt-free living. I have yet to find a natural antiperspirant.

But, having achieved success on the pooless front, I finally consented to give it a go. Rather than trying a pre-fab natural deo, I mixed up my own based on a recipe posted by a reader on the womens' blog Jezebel. This is really easy. And cheap.

1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup baking soda
2 Tbs coconut oil
15-30 drops essential oil (Lavender and tea tree are recommended for their antimicrobial properties.)

The mixture is silky and snow-white. I keep it in a small, lidded container and use a fingertip to apply a pea-sized amount after showering. This stuff is seriously amazing! I've put it through long, summer days including farm work, heavy lifting sessions, laying out in the sun, and all manner of other sweaty ventures. No odor. None. For 24+ hours.

My commercial deo couldn't do that. And honestly, I'm not sure the commercial deo was doing a much better job on the antiperspirant front either. Plus, I swear my body has down-regulated on the BO front -- not that it's ever been a real issue for me, but these days, I can go a whole weekend on the farm with no deo at all, and no odor. Huh.

The only problem I'm having is that the homemade deodorant tends to give me a red, itchy, bumpy rash for about 12 hours after application. I suspect this is from the lavender oil and will be mixing up a batch later today without the oil, to see if that solves the problem while still working as effectively.

Makeup: I've never been a heavy user, but lately I've dropped the use of eye shadow, blush, and face powder. I keep a bottle of Lush's tea tree toner spray in my desk drawer for oily moments, but rarely need it. Mascara is my one holdout -- I just like how it looks. We'll see how long that lasts.

Moisturizer: I rarely need moisturizer these days, and have taken to telling people who comment on my "beautiful skin" that I moisturize from the inside by eating plenty of healthful fats. When I do use something, it's typically another Lush product. When I run out of that, I'll probably try the much-recommended coconut oil instead.

Okay, folks. What am I missing? What natural bodycare concoctions have you tried? Did you stick with it? Why or why not?

Rubber, Meet Road.

I don't work out to stay lean, or look hot, or even for the undeniable health benefits. Those are perks. The real reason I work out is so I can run my farm.

There's a 55-foot flatbed parked on my upper driveway. It towers with 6 rows of tightly packed bales of Oregon hay. The bales average 98 pounds -- 17 pounds under my own bodyweight -- and the load totals 16.2 tons.

My mission is to unload the bales from the trailer and re-stack them, 6 to 10 high, for winter storage. This must be done by early next week, so the trailer can make another trip across the border and return with another 9 tons.

It's a hell of a workout. Wrestling those bales into place takes me, singlehanded, about an hour per ton. I try to move about 3 tons in a day. The effort compares to the same time spent on a heavy lifting workout -- a bit more variety, no breaks between sets -- but it's similar. Plenty of real-life deadlifts, bent-over rows, front squats, and lunges. Throw in some sled dragging. And do it all in an enclosed space so full of dust and pollen that you have to wear a mask to keep your throat from closing up.

A while back, I wrote that fitness is choices. And it is.

But fitness is also the ability to do the job that needs doing, brutal though it may be. And I have it.

If friends stop by to help, it'll be much appreciated. The job will be done faster, and I can get back to training horses. But they probably won't, and that's okay. I can handle it. It'll work out because I work out.

And that, my friends, feels pretty damn good.

Pretty Pooless

This business of switching to shampoo-free living has gone much, much more smoothly than I could have hoped. I'm just about to wrap up Week 2 of Project Pooless...and I think the project might be over. Transition complete. Lifestyle element integrated. Deal sealed.

After Week 1, which ended with a Monday morning shampoo before going to the office, I got a little bolder:

Tuesday -- Salad Treatment (baking soda wash and apple cider vinegar conditioning). My hair was soft, shiny, and manageable all day at work. Ironman noted he didn't even detect the vinegar odor, let alone become bothered by it.

Wednesday -- No poo. Water rinse only. I noticed while combing out my wet hair that it was much less tangle-prone than usual. I'd go so far as to call it tangle-free, which is a near-miracle for my long, fine, straight hair.

Thursday -- Egg wash and ACV conditioning. Still looking good and feeling fantastic.

Friday -- No poo. This was a risk. This was the fourth day since I'd used shampoo, and I was going to face the office after only a water rinse. I used my new boarshair brush to smooth the natural oils along my hair, then rinsed for a couple minutes with medium-hot water. It worked. My hair looked clean all day, and even shinier and softer than before.

Saturday -- No poo. It was a dusty, sweaty day on the farm, and I wore a hat until my cool late-afternoon shower, which left my hair slightly oily but certainly acceptable for a weekend evening on the deck swing.

Sunday -- Salad treatment. I almost went with just another water rinse, but I'm planning on a de-greasing egg wash tomorrow before work, and I thought it would be considerate of me to bother with a deodorizing baking soda wash in case my coworkers are more sensitive than I to any lingering scents of livestock and sweat.

I think I've done it. I'm free! My hair looks and feels fantastic. It styles fine even with air dried, which it never did before. I even "shed" less. Seriously. You have to try this! If I can do it, with my long hair (see my "about me" photo at the top of this page), so can you.

But watch out...it's a slippery slope. I've progressed to natural varieties of almost all other bodycare products. Details to follow.

Go forth and go pooless!

Project Pooless: Week One

There are two basic methods of shifting to a shampoo-free lifestyle:

1. Cold turkey, or
2. Baby steps.

Normally, I'm the cold turkey type. I like to do my homework, make a decision, then act without further hesitation. This time, however, the need to look decent at the office requires me to take the baby steps route.

So, here's how Week One looked:

Saturday -- No poo. Just a good, hot-water rinse after a day of sweat and dust among the horses. Next morning, my hair was reasonably manageable, if a little greasier than usual.

Sunday -- Poo. Hey, I was off to see Ironman and didn't want to subject him to the slimier side of my experiment. Yet.

Monday -- Poo. Date day. See above.

Tuesday -- Poo again. I didn't want to, but wasn't willing to risk an experiment just before heading to the office.

Wednesday -- No poo! I telecommuted and was therefore free to test what I've come to call the Salad Treatment. I "washed" my hair with baking soda and "conditioned" it with apple cider vinegar.

Details:

I scrubbed about 2 Tbs of dry baking soda into my hair, focusing on roots rather than ends, and rinsed it out. This is not supposed to remove grease, but simply neutralize any odors. (I later learned that most people make a paste by mixing the soda with water, or else dissolve it in up to a cup of water, either of which is probably easier than trying to work dry soda down to your scalp!)

To condition, I diluted about 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar with 3/4 cup of water in a large, plastic cup. Into this I dipped the ends of my long hair, then tilted my head to allow the vinegar concoction to run through the rest of my hair while taking care not to get it in my eyes. I left the vinegar in my hair for several minutes while shaving, then rinsed thoroughly.

I was pleasantly surprised by the clean look and smooth, slightly heavier-but-fuller-than-usual texture of my hair post Salad Treatment. The only downside was a faint vinegar odor that lingered even after drying (everyone says the smell goes away with the moisture, but that didn't work for me!) Furthermore, when my hair was re-wetted with sweat later in the day, the vinegar smell increased. It wasn't overwhelming, but I'll be interested to see what Ironman thinks!

Thursday -- Poo. Office again.

Friday -- Salad Treatment. AND office. Encouraged by Wednesday's success, I once again applied baking soda and vinegar (not at the same time!) with very satisfactory results.

Saturday -- Egg wash.

Details: Egg, unlike the Salad Treatment, is supposed to remove some oil from the hair without being as harsh as shampoo. I tried it after another dusty, sweaty day in the round corral. While I wasn't in love with the eggy smell, I found the farm-fresh white and yolk easy to work through my hair. I let it sit a minute, then rinsed very thoroughly with COOL water (no need to poach a snack while showering). I followed up with vinegar for conditioning, then braided my wet hair instead of blow-drying. Interestingly, it was the eggy smell that followed me this time, more than the vinegar. Maybe it was mental. Either way, it was subtle. Next time, I might try adding a few drops of lavender extract to the egg.

Sunday -- No poo. Hot water only. Next morning, my hair was a bit greasier than normal (too greasy for me to trust to a Salad Treatment before going to work.) But, it was not nearly as oily as I'd have predicted.

Monday -- Poo. I tried following the wash with a vinegar conditioning treatment, but that was insufficient and I ended up applying a bit of leave-in conditioner before blow-drying.

All things considered, this is going better than I expected! Stay tuned...

Duck Hunt! (Hoo boy, do we know how to have fun!)

Remember when Duck Hunt was just an Nintendo game? It's your lucky day! Duck Hunt is now available in real life, right here at In the Night Farm.

[No animals were harmed in the making of this game.]

You see, when Ironman and I brought home our box of fuzzy ducklings, there were a couple things we didn't know. First, ducklings eat three times their own weight every 24 hours (or at least they seem to, judging by the feed bill). Second, Khaki Campbells and Rouens are not flightless. The breeder pamphlets say they are, but I assure you, it's a lie.

Just ask me how I know.

What's that?

Okay, I'll tell you: Because I've seen them do it!

A couple weeks ago, when I went to Chicago and left Ironman in charge of the farm, he came around the corner to the fenced (but not roofed) duck yard and startled up a couple of Rouens. One lingered nearby and he nabbed it, but the other was last seen on a wobbly flightpath into an oncoming thunderstorm.

Tonight, I did the same thing. Came around the corner, and up went a Khaki Campbell. She flew northward over the horse paddocks and disappeared. Well crap, I thought. Those buggers are worth their weight in gold, after all they've eaten! Better keep them locked in their indoor pen until we can get a roof on the yard.

I resigned myself to the loss of yet another member of the poultry brigade (it's been a rough year for chickens, too), collected the eggs and mail, paused to inspect the garden, and climbed wearily up the to the main level of my farmhouse.

...and I heard a duck. Quacking. From beyond the horse pens.

Well, what did I have to lose? I trotted back down the stairs and through the pasture, circling around behind a patch of weeds at which all the horses were staring curiously. Sure enough, there was little Khaki, a female, panting and obviously distressed by the unintended separation from her flock.

I approached slowly, sure my chances of catching her were close to nil, and was surprised to get within 6 feet before she panicked. She blundered against a nearby fence, flapping and squawking, the managed to slip through.

Dang it! I hurried around to the sheep pens, where there's a spot of fence strong enough to climb over without tearing down the wire or getting zapped with electricity, and caught up with Khaki near the stallion paddocks. She didn't seem to want to fly, but watched me warily, waddling away and occasionally skimming along with her wings outstretched and flapping if I got too close.

Right then. Nice and easy does the trick. Feeling like a large and unwieldy sheepdog, I herded her carefully up the path toward the gate, wondering what on earth I'd do if I managed to get her through. The fences seemed to guide her, but a long stretch of open land lies between the paddocks and the poultry housing.

As it turned out, that was one bridge I didn't need to cross. Khaki waddled right past the gate and into the round corral I use for training horses. I managed to direct her to the uphill side, where the panels are set into the hill and the earth shored back with planks to make a solid wall about as high as Khaki's upraised head.

Still unwilling -- or too unfit? -- to do so, Khaki scrambled back and forth as I weaved to stay ahead of her, repeatedly blocking her path as though she were a fractious filly. In the back of my mind, I couldn't help wondering how hard the neighbors were laughing.

Slowly, slowly I crept nearer. Near enough to...

GRAB!

Missed. Blast! Khaki slipped through my hands and scuttled away -- but blessedly, she didn't fly.

On my second try, I got her. Pinned her wings right to her sides and gathered her against my chest, where she rested without a struggle, peering up at me with a shiny, button eye. She sleeps safely now amid her flock.

Maybe I should add duck wrangling to my resume. I think I will. Who wants to work for an employer without a sense of humor?

Besides, cool I am not, but if you're in the market for a renaissance woman, I've gotcha covered.

The Organic Pocketbook: A Struggle Survived

You've heard of debtors prison. Even if it still exists somewhere in the world, I will never go there. I was reared to be responsible with money. Very, very responsible. If a fool and his money are soon parted, count me among the wisest folk you'll ever meet. For me, a major spending spree runs about $150.00 and involves durable goods. I'm positively allergic to debt.

My dad once told me that money is choices. For me, like many women, it is also security. In my case, this means not only my own security, but also that of the 40 of so critters that depend on me for everything from fencing to feed.

I'm telling you this so you can understand what it cost me to go grocery shopping today. Normally one of my favorite activities, today's shopping trip made my stomach literally ache with indecision.

There sat organic avocados, $1.89 apiece. Beside them, conventional for $.78. Organic tomatoes, $1.99/lb. Conventional, as low as $.89. Cherries, $1.99 for a pound of organic, or the same price for two pounds of conventional. Baby spinach, $4.99 or $3.50? Zucchini, $1.29 or less than a dollar?

But I said I would do it, and if there's one thing I hate more than irresponsibility with money, it's irresponsibility with words. Integrity is doing what you said you would, even when no one is watching. Even when it hurts.

And so, despite sufficient stress that I'm considering downing an extra teaspoon of fish oil before bed, I checked out of the store with $23.86 worth of produce. Even though my garden is currently languishing between early crops (greens, peas, rhubarb) and later ones (tomatoes, squash, peppers, beans), that should last me a week.

So, let's multiply that up to about $100 per month for produce. Huh. Not so bad, actually. My former food budget was $200 per month. (Yes, it's possible. I live alone and cook virtually all my meals.) $100 for produce is steeper than my comfort zone -- I need to spare funds for meat and a few extras, like coconut milk and nuts! -- but it's not outside the realm of reality.

Because I'm not really that crazy about money. My bedroom walls, alas, are not stuffed full of hoarded cash. I'm quite content to spend money on priorities: my horses, my farm, adventure, knowledge, and certain people.

Including myself, I suppose. My health. My choice not to slowly poison my cells with daily doses of pesticides and genetically modified mystery plants.

If money is choices, there aren't many more secure than that.
____________________________________

Hungry for more? You might also like A Tale of Oregon Elk: On Food and Gratitude.

All In: Taking Primal to the Next Level

About this time last year, I was beginning to accept that grains and legumes should not be counted among healthful foods. I'd added fish to my flegan diet in order to support an intense workout schedule. And I read a lot.

By August, I understood. Primal/paleo made sense, I'd applied it, and it was working. I'd long since nixed alcohol except for the occasional social event, I hadn't consumed an appreciable quantity of processed food for years, and refined sugars rarely passed my lips. To those auspicious beginnings, I added grain- and legume-free eating, shifted up to 70% of my daily caloric intake to healthful fats, and increased my focus on getting adequate sunlight and sleep.

I've since added in some judiciously researched supplements (magnesium, CoQ10, alpha-lipoic acid, Vitamins E and C, and fish oil). I've become more strategic in balancing my formal workouts with the rigors of summertime on the farm, and 14-16 hour intermittent fasts are a near-daily habit.

So, I'm ten months in and pretty well on track. Right? Well, that depends who you ask. Sure, I eat and exercise more effectively than the vast majority of westerners (and I have the lipid profile to prove it), but there's no denying that more that can be done.

So, for at least a month, here's what I'm going to try:

1. Going Grassfed. The only excuse not to is money. Maybe it's a good excuse, and maybe not. I'm determined to find out.

2. Going Organic. See above. Hopefully, I can apply sufficient savvy to make this affordable.

3. Going with Better Fish Oil. Enough with the Costco capsules. My bottles of lemon-flavored Carlson's just arrived from the Vitamin Shoppe, and they aren't half bad. Four teaspoons a day surely beats 20 gelcaps. (Yes, 20. See Robb Wolf's fish oil calculator for details.)

4. Going Pooless. This is a scary one. I have both a professional job and long, somewhat fine hair that's subjected to plenty of sweat and dirt -- facts that seem incompatible with shampoo-free living. But, I hear it can be done, and my early experiments have been (mostly) positive. Stay tuned.

5. Going Shoeless. Well, sort of. The much-lauded Vibram Five Fingers aren't an option for me, thanks to my severe bunions. So, I'm in the market for a pair or two of soft-soled moccasins. I doubt I'll be wearing them with business suits or among the horses, but for indoor wear and dog walking, they'll be a big step closer to barefoot.

So. Some little things, some big things. Some things that will certainly be sustainable, some that might not. All I can do is try it and find out.

Anyone care to join me?

Beyond the Cave: Primal Thoughts on Corporate Travel

Primal living is easy -- beyond easy! -- when I'm at or near home. I pack large salads laden with protein and healthful fats for my midday, post-IF "breakfasts" and conjure up large roasts or pots of stew that serve as dinner throughout the week. My refrigerator bursts with eggs and vegetables, my freezer with meats, and my pantry with coconut milk and spices. I have a farm full of work and a gym full of iron at my disposal. I'm living large.

And then comes corporate travel. Most people seem to view trips to the big city as occasions of culinary opulence. What a beautiful city! they crow. So much to do! So much to eat! I seem to be the only one wondering where people who actually live there forage and hunt. (To this day, I have yet to locate a single grocery store in Washington DC.) Airports and restaurants seem quite unaware that it is, in fact, possible to construct an entire meal that contains neither grains nor frankenfats nor heaps of fruit. Hotel management is so paranoid of lawsuits that you're lucky to find a set of dumbbells in what I've come to call the "Fitless Center" with its never-ending stream of cardio-bunnies bounding righteously along on glorified hamster wheels.

Nevertheless, sometimes, one must travel. I just returned from a four-day jaunt to Chicago, where I spent my days at a professional conference. Here are my observations:

1. It is possible to locate salads -- albeit anemic, low-protein, low-fat, unimaginative ones -- in airport kiosks. However, they all come with sugar and soy/corn oil-laden dressing packs. I need to dream up some way to pack reasonably healthful salad dressings. Most likely, said dressings will need to be homemade. Leakproof. Safe at room temperature. And 3 oz or less. I'm open to suggestions.

2. Packing my own "paleo kits" was a lifesaver. In anticipation of inedible conference food, I packed a baggie of beef jerky, almonds, walnuts, macadamias, and a few home-dried apricots for each day of the trip. As the box lunches provided by the conference each contained at least as many carbs as I would normally consume over 3 entire days (mostly in the form of potato chips, sandwich rolls, and cookies), these paleo kits came in mighty useful. Next time, however, I'll pack the jerky separate from the nuts and fruit, as they all decided to exchange moisture levels in the shared space, resulting in extra-tough jerky and slightly mushy nuts. Thanks to the conference breakfasts of fruit and fried burritos, I was also glad to have packed plenty of kippered herring and unsweetened coconut flakes.

3. The primal lifestyle makes one look rather hot in summery, business-casual dress, which has the useful side effect of enhancing networking capability. Play to your strengths.

4. Speaking of strengths, effective bodyweight workouts can be squeezed in among the ridiculous contraptions (read: ellipticals and bowflexes) the fill hotel Fitless Rooms. Bonus: free entertainment in the form of disbelieving expressions when you bang out more decline pushups, pistols, and renegade rows than any of the boys. For extra fun, surreptitiously post a notice above the stack of free Tribunes: WARNING -- Working out while reading the newspaper makes you look like an unproductive idiot.

5. A few days of calorie restriction has its uses. My trip provided an interesting shakeup of my typical eating schedule. Instead of consuming my usual quantity of fuel during an 8-hour eating window, I instead consumed a reduced amount spread throughout the day. As a result, I returned home visibly leaner -- albeit ready to plow through several pounds of steak without coming up for air.

There's more, of course: Seek out greenbelts for sprinting, strategically apply a long run to drain glycogen stores if you do give in to a burger and fries, remember your supplements (including extra fish oil), keep your mouth shut about being paleo unless someone asks, focus on intellectual pursuits rather than obsessing about food, keep the bloody television off, etc.

But you know that stuff, right? Happy trails.

Why.

I blog too little lately
because I haven't enough time
energy
effort
heart.

Which makes me wonder why I blog at all
because I could always fill time
in other ways
real ways
always.

Still, I return to fill not time but minds
not space but souls
bodies
because people matter
even though, some days,
I hate us all.

I blog for the fatties!
the chronically ill, the dissatisfied
for the stubborn bodies that refuse to respond
to mindful
willful
relentless
useless
adherence to spoon-fed, corn-fed, never-dead
lies.

I blog for the primals!
the paleos already freed
but also dissatisfied
always alone
because no one still bound can understand.

Do they want to understand?

I blog to break free!
You.
Us.
Me.

Tuesday Tallies

My occasional answer to the frequently asked questions, "What do you eat?" and "How do you work out?"

Saturday's Food as Fuel

Breakfast: Two eggs over easy with avocado, cottage cheese, and primal chili.

Lunch: Moroccan chicken. Half an apple with almond butter.

Dinner: Bunless hamburger with smoked gouda, sauteed mushrooms and onions, and fresh garden salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Half an ounce of 99% chocolate and coconut cream.

Saturday's Workout: Long day on the farm. 11+ hours of "moving slowly," with occasional lifting of heavy things. Horse training, riding, chores, gardening...
_____________________

Sunday's Food as Fuel

Breakfast: Moroccan chicken over jicama and carrot "rice."

Lunch: Three eggs scrambled with onion, jalipeno, and spinach, topped with avocado and hot sauce.

Dinner: Harvati rolled in deli roast beef. Salad with sugar snap peas, strawberries, apple, walnuts, and olive oil-cinnamon vinegar dressing.

Sunday's Workout: Even longer day on the farm. All the above, plus rototilling.
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Monday's Food as Fuel

Breakfast: Intermittent fast totaling 16 hours.

Lunch: Spinach and garden lettuce salad with canned wild salmon, avocado, olives, sundried tomatoes, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Dinner: Primal hamburger casserole. Roasted carrots and zucchini. 1 oz. 99% chocolate.

Monday's Workout: 4x rotation of barbell lunges, weighted HLRs, pullups, deadlifts, and weighted bench situps. Evening walk with Wyrsa the staghound.
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Tuesday's Food as Fuel

Breakfast: Three eggs scrambled with onion, jalipeno, and spinach, topped with avocado and hot sauce. Strawberries and blueberries blended with coconut milk.

Lunch: Spinach salad with canned wild salmon, avocado, roasted carrots and zucchini, and olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Dinner: A handful of Primal Energy Mix, and maybe a tin of sardines.

Tuesday's Workout: Rest day. Concealed carry class tonight!

Bloody Marvelous

I just received the results of my first-ever blood panel.

Normally, I avoid conventional medicine (aside from emergency care, which is a whole other -- and much more impressive! -- ballgame) like the plague that it (mostly) is.

But, when Central District Health brought a $22 cholesterol screening and fasting blood glucose test clinic to my office, I couldn't pass up the chance for some cheap numbers. My inner geek demands regular feedings, after all, and I was dying to know whether this high fat, moderate protein, fairly low carb diet was killing me.

I've been primal (closer to paleo, actually) for a good 7 months now. Unfortunately, I don't have "before" blood work. A comparison would be fascinating, particularly as I'd been mostly vegan for the previous three years.

Anyway, here are the numbers as they came off the report. Interpretation to follow.

Fasting blood glucose: 84 mg/dL (Optimal is 60-100. Higher puts you in the pre-diabetes or diabetes category.)

Total cholesterol: 216 mg/dL (Optimal is under 200. Or so says conventional wisdom. Wait for it...)

Triglycerides: 38 mg/dL (Optimal is 30-150.)

HDL: 101 mg/dL (Optimal is 40 or more. This is the "good" cholesterol.)

LDL: 107 mg/dL (Optimal is under 100. According to conventional wisdom.)

I know enough about cholesterol to be unconcerned about these numbers, but for all the gory details, I pulled up this fantastic post, written by a knowledgeable member of the MDA forum. "Griff" has actually reversed full-fledged, type II diabetes with diet alone, and he knows his stuff.

As Griff explains clearly and thoroughly, total cholesterol is much less important than the ratios between the numbers, and LDL cholesterol numbers from a simple test like this are inaccurate in anyone with triglycerides below 100 mg/dL.

Let's start with that second point. LDL is typically calculated using the Friedwald formula, but it is well known that the formula only works properly, mathematically speaking, if trigs are higher than 100 mg/dL. Therefore, because my trigs only came in at 38, I know that the 107 listed for my calculated LDL is inaccurate.

Fortunately, there is a different and more accurate formula available. According to the Iranian calculation (detailed in Griff's post, if you're curious), my LDL is actually only 71.7 -- well within the optimal range of 100 or fewer mg/dL. So there.

Now, let's talk about ratios. There are three that count. Here are mine and what they mean:

Total:HDL = 216:101 = 2.1 (Ideal for women is 4.4 or lower. This indicates that my LDL cholesterol is predominantly Pattern A, or "large fluffy," which is neutral rather than dangerous.)

Trigs:HDL = 38:101 = .37 (Ideal is 2 or lower. This indicates low risk of heart disease, as well as low free insulin, which is a good thing.)

LDL:HDL = 71.7:101 = .7 (Ideal is 4.3 or below. Even using the inaccurate, Friedwald formula, my ratio is still stellar at 1. This indicates that I have very little carotid plaque.)

So. It looks like I'm not going to keel over from coronary heart disease anytime soon.

Pass the bacon n' barbell, please.
_______________________________

For details of what I've been eating these past 7 months, check out the posts labeled Tuesday Tallies. You'll see that they've changed some over time (mostly in a carb-lowering direction), but the central principles have remained intact.
_______________________________

PSA: If you have bloodwork results of your own handy, please, PLEASE do yourself a favor and run the ratios on them. Your numbers can be low enough to satisfy your doctor, yet your ratios could put you in the danger zone. Conversely, you may have been prescribed statins (and all their nasty side effects) when your ratios are actually quite safe. See the MDA post linked above for easy instructions on how to do the math.

For further reading, there are lots of links in the post. See also Protein Power by the Drs. Eades.

Down Under: Root Cellar Update

It's been a long time coming, but In the Night Farm's root cellar is nearly complete.


The big hole, dug nearly two years ago with the help of a generous neighbor's backhoe, now features an underground room lined with shelves. Many of the shelves (which still need to be bolted to the walls) are vented to provide air flow beneath root crops like onions, sweet potatoes, and Yukon Golds.


Yes, potatoes! Many believe these to be a less-than-primal food (and I haven't eaten a white potato in months), but homegrown taters are a sensible indulgence I'm more than willing to enjoy. If you've never tried them, you must! They're as different from commercially grown potatoes as are garden tomatoes from those supermarket imposters.

There's also plenty of space, down here in the humid chill, to hang herbs, store sealed packages of dried fruit from the apricot tree and tomato vines, and cluster jars of home-canned dills. We might even throw in a few bottles of wine.


The walls are reinforced, the cracks sealed, the tin ready to go on the roof...and it's time to start filling in the hole. Now, there's a primal workout I've looked forward to! Really. Digging in the dirt, particularly with a real goal in mind, is tremendously satisfying. Ask any kid.

(Tardy) Tuesday Tallies: Primal Menus & Movement

It's time again for my occasional answer to the frequent questions: "What do you eat?" and "How do you work out?"

(Yes, I know it's Wednesday. I was busy yesterday.)

Sunday's Food as Fuel

Breakfast: 3 eggs over easy with onions, peppers, avocado, and hot sauce. Bacon. Apple.

Lunch: Didn't need it. Besides, I was out riding. I had a few brazil nuts when I got back.

Dinner: Ground beef and sweet potato curry. Blueberries with coconut milk and 1/2 oz 98% chocolate.

Sunday's Workout: Playday! Rode 26 miles. For those unfamiliar with good equitation, riding a horse well takes about the same level of effort as walking briskly.
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Monday's Food as Fuel

Breakfast: Spinach salad with steamed carrots and broccoli, canned wild salmon, pecans, olive oil, and vinegar.

Lunch: Ground beef and sweet potato curry.

Dinner: Bunless cheeseburger with sauteed onions and mushrooms. Steamed brussels sprouts with butter. Strawberries with coconut milk.

Monday's Workout: 3x rotation of pistols, decline pushups, Turkish getups, close-grip pushups, planks, and chinups.
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Tuesday's Food as Fuel

Breakfast: IF (15 1/2-hour intermittent fast, broken at 1:00pm)

Lunch: Spinach salad with steamed carrots and green beans, alfalfa sprouts, canned wild salmon, walnuts, olive oil, and vinegar. And a bit of smoked salmon someone brought to the office to share.

Snack: Strawberries and half a banana with coconut milk.

Dinner: Ground beef and sweet potato curry. Cottage cheese with avocado.

Tuesday's Workout: 5x backsquats, renegade rows, bench presses, and military presses
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Wednesday's Food as Fuel

Breakfast: Spinach salad with alfalfa sprouts, steamed carrots and green beans, canned wild salmon, cashews, olive oil and vinegar.

Lunch: Italian tuna salad (tuna, sundried tomatoes, black olives, artichokes, oil and vinegar, oregano and pepper) and 2 hardboiled eggs.

Dinner: Small steak. Brussels sprouts with butter. Strawberries with coconut milk.

Wednesday's workout: Rest day.

Note that I've thrown in a bit more carbohydrate than in the past (except on the rest day). I'm moving up from about 65g/day to about 85g, as my energy expenditure is higher now that we have more daylight down on the farm. I was getting a bit fried at the lower carb level, but I think I've found the right balance again.

I love understanding (or at least, getting closer to understanding) what's going on with my body -- and how to manipulate it for maximum performance!

The Anatomy of a Cheat

Y'all know by now that I'm not much of a cheater.

I like my primal straight up, thanks. I'll have a bit of dairy, but that's it. No sneaks from the office candy bowl. No toast with my eggs. No rice with stir fry or tortillas with fajitas or Pepsi on the sly. I'm too in love with my leanness, strength, and energy to risk it over a mouthful of sweet or starchy poison.

And yet, once in a blue moon, I do plan a major cheat. I hate that term, by the way, because it implies that the "cheater" is committing a mortal sin or losing control, rather than making an informed choice to eat something he or she normally avoids.

There's no real harm in a very-occasional , non-primal indulgence. (Assuming you're not still working to fix a broken metabolism, in which case more caution is advisable.)

And so, as I do about three times per year, I brought home a take-and-bake pizza (half Hawaiian, half pepperoni) and a small carton of Moose Tracks. I enjoyed several slices of pizza and a bowl of ice cream, and felt, as I knew I would, like complete crap.

The ice cream in particular made me feel like I'd swallowed a bucketful of steak knives. It also exacerbated the mild sore throat with which I'd been contending all afternoon. It was tasty, though!

I drank lots of water to combat the carb-induced water retention and went to bed smiling at myself, knowing that I was experiencing exactly what I was supposed to.

The next morning, I woke up looking reasonably lean -- about normal, but slightly puffy and less visibly cut in the abs. I had some leftover pizza for breakfast, in response to which my stomach made its displeasure known. A bit more ice cream reintroduced the sore throat and mucousy sinuses, which had resolved overnight. Note to self: Do not plan cheats for days your immune system is already working overtime.

Then, I went about my day, ignoring the lactose-, lectin-, and gluten-induced discomfort that persisted for hours. Unable to train horses or do farm work due to abysmal weather (horizontal sleet, anyone?), I drove to town and poked about in the thrift stores, where I scored a 5.5' x 3' wall mirror for my home gym.

Anyway. While I was in town, I bought (primal) groceries. I wandered around Home Depot, plotting future projects. I took my time. And I didn't get hungry.

I came home. Lifted heavy for almost an hour. Set a personal best on back squats. Wrapped up in an Aussie duster and fed the livestock in a driving rainstorm. Warmed up with a mug of spearmint tea. Didn't get hungry.

By 8:00, I still hadn't eaten and reckoned there wasnt' any need to. I went to bed looking lean and feeling strong (if still a bit queasy) and pleasantly satisfied with my body's apparent ability to make the best of a nasty shock.

As I understand it, a primal-adapted body, that is, one that is insulin-sensitive and accustomed to accessing fat for fuel, can endure -- and even benefit from -- an occasional influx of carbs. Yes, yes, such influx should typically be free of gluten and added sugar. Believe me, I know.

Faced with a rush of starch and sugar, my liver arranged neat chains of glycogen molecules to be harvested at will for the satisfaction of the parts of my brain and other tissues that prefer glucose as fuel. Excess glycogen was shuttled away to my muscle cells, where insulin rang the doorbell so my sensitive insulin receptors could admit as much fuel as possible. When my liver and muscle glycogen stores were both full, all extra energy was stored in my fat cells for later use.

Thanks to my fat-adapted metabolism -- the product of months of low-carb, adequate-protein, high-fat eating -- all that stored fuel was ready and waiting to meet energy needs long after my stomach emptied. Those bolstered fat cells emptied right back out.

And, as an added bonus, I enjoyed a reboot in leptin sensitivity, which resulted in visibly-improved leanness within 48 hours post-cheat. (Basically, leptin is a hormone that encourages the burning of stored bodyfat.) Under normal circumstances, I achieve this without the nasty side effects of grain and sugar-laden dairy by consuming a bi-weekly boost of primal carbs such as sweet potatoes, winter squash, fruit, or plantains.

And oh, those side effects are nasty indeed. Three days and two 16+ hour intermittent fasts passed before I felt completely normal again. It doesn't matter whether you fall off the wagon or jump off by choice -- the ground is just as hard!

I'm glad to be back on the straight and narrow for the foreseeable future. After all, the primal straight and narrow is a pretty satisfying place:

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See this fascinating thread on the MDA forum for additional detail on how the body handles carbohydrate, as well as a variety of other topics.

Easter Eats for Non-Primal Peeps

Can it be Easter already?

The last few days at In the Night Farm have featured howling winds and rain mixed with snow, the biting sort of weather that turns the horses like weather vanes, tails against the gusts, backs hunched and heads lowered as if to pray for summer's haste.

It may not have felt like spring, but indoors, a primal Easter feast was underway. Because we're running late this year on butchering, I didn't serve the usual leg of lamb and fancy trimmings. Instead, I took it easy with this simple, Mexican-influenced menu that left plenty of time for socializing with my (non-primal) guests:

Steamed Crudites with Adobo Yogurt Sauce;


Garlic Pulled Pork, a recent cookbook-contest winner from Mark's Daily Apple;


Bacon Stuffed Anaheim Peppers, since the store didn't have large jalapenos for my recipe;


Strawberry and Avocado Salad with Chile-Lime Dressing; and,


Coconut Fried Plantains

And wine, of course.

I love creating satisfying, primal meals for non-primal guests. Include plenty of interesting colors, flavors and textures, and most people will never notice the absence of sugar and grain.

Happy Easter to all, and to all a good night! (Did I mention we had wine?)

Sheer Quackery

Are these not the cutest things ever?

They'd better be, because they're a bloody nuisance! I spent more time last week than I care to admit chasing loose ducklings around my master bathroom. The little buggers may be only a few days old, but they're quick -- and good heavens, can they scream when separated from their buddies!

As you might expect, I have a better reason for raising a flock of ducklings than cooing over their downy wings and teeny, duckbilled yawns, or even the adventure of midnight duckhunts involving reaching around one side of the toilet while attempting to block any escape route with a convenient trash can. No, Ironman and I have decided to raise ducks for eggs and meat.

Duck eggs are slightly larger and higher in cholesterol than chicken eggs, and their shells have a smoother, waxier appearance. (I know this because we bought a dozen from the local co-op to make sure we liked them before investing in duck housing and stock, which totaled about $300.) They taste quite similar -- perhaps a touch milder and richer -- but the difference is as subtle as that between the eggs of chickens on different diets.

As for the meat, well, I'm all for any option that will spare me conventionally raised products. Unfortunately, for reasons I discussed long ago in this post, our ducks will still eat a fair amount of grain, though I'll do my best to get some real food down their gullets as well. At least they won't be pumped full of antibiotics.

After doing some homework on duck husbandry and deciding to go ahead with the project, Ironman and I built a duck shelter and playground next to the chicken coop and chicken yard. (I think it turned out pretty well, myself!)


Next, we stopped by a local hatchery for a box of ducklings. Because ducks are only sold straight run (not sexed), we had to buy extras in order to ensure that we'd get enough females to keep for our breeding flock of 8 or10 ducks and 2 drakes. The extra drakes will make some lovely meals in 9-14 weeks. (Sorry, boys.)

I selected breeds based on the characteristics that were most important to us: egg production, meat quality, and mothering instinct. The yellow ducklings are Pekins. They'll grow into white-feathered adults that are large, quick-growing meat ducks. The brown ones are Khaki Campbells, which are renowned for their egg laying capacity -- up to 300 eggs per duck per year! The ones with striped faces are Rouens, which are good egg layers and reliable setters to boot. They'll be responsible for raising future broods.

We bought six of each breed, but two of the Rouens didn't make it. One died within hours of leaving the hatchery; the other held on for a few days but eventually succumbed. I'm not certain whether this is because Rouens are a more delicate breed, or because the Rouens we bought were a day (or even a half-day) younger than the others and couldn't quite compete. Thankfully, the remaining four are doing swimmingly.

Speaking of swimming, there's no question that these guys know they're waterfowl. They certainly love fouling their water! Ducks have no choice in the matter, actually; they require water-sloshing to clear their nostrils and throats of sticky food-mash. Nevertheless, this tendency was a bit of a problem during the few days they lived in (and sometime out of) a blue wading pool in my bathroom. Try as I might, I could not keep their pine-shaving bedding dry for more than an hour at a time.

So, they're outside now, in a 3x5 foot, cat-proof section of the duck pen. I put them out there yesterday after much internal debate regarding whether they'd be able to handle the lower temperatures and spring winds. They're only six days old, after all, and haven't the benefit of Mama's toasty underbelly to keep them warm.

The 250-watt heat lamp proved sufficient, however. I checked on them this morning, after a windy night in the low 30's, to find them yawning and preening, stretching their tiny, web-footed legs, and looking sweeter than any chocolate duck that ever found its way into my childhood Easter basket.

Betcha they'll be just as tasty, too.

(On the subject of tasty poultry... I finally have my desktop computer fixed, which means I can edit photos again, which means that I was able to upload a photo of my Hottie Hen with a Pig Pizza -- recipe and photo here.)

The Gift of Fitness

One of my favorite things to listen to is the sound of my father's voice. I have listened to it so long, so intently, over the years that we are as alike in the cadence of our speech as in physical appearance.

I have gained more from his words than the rhythm of language. I've gained knowledge as well, much of it neatly encapsulated in remembered turns of phrase that I imagine he doesn't recall having spoken all those years ago.

"Money is choices" is one quote that stuck with me. Simple. Obvious, once you notice it. Ringing with the force of truth. And, I have come to realize, quite as applicable to fitness as it is to finance.

I once read that fitness is the difference between the most you can do and the least you can do. I like to keep that difference big. Huge. Broad enough to swing me from deep sleep to the oars of a raft sweeping into Crystal Rapid on the Colorado, to the back of a horse forty miles into a mountain race, to the summit of Pike's Peak with bare arms outstretched above the snow.

Fitness, like money, is bought with work. Time. Commitment. Effort. Often we enjoy it, but sometimes we don't. Sometimes, it is just plain hard. The barbell is heavy, the hill is steep, the road is long.

But look what we get in exchange! The embrace of life, my friends. Choices, and the strength to pursue them all.

Halfway House: Acceptable Recipes for Partly-Primal Living?

My roommate is overweight.

Okay, obese.

Last week, he informed me that he has gained 24 pounds in the past 6 months – and that was from a starting point of at least 20 pounds over his ideal weight. He’s ready to get rid of it.

But there’s a catch: He’s not ready to get rid of his favorite foods – which, like most of our favorites, are those addictive, sugary, bready carbs.

He’s watched the primal lifestyle work its magic on me, but going primal seems like too big a change. "Isn’t there some kind of compromise?" he asked.

I told him I’d give it some thought.

Indeed, something I’ve wondered about for a long time is whether a person does more harm or good by switching from the Standard American Diet (SAD) to a partly primal diet.

On one hand, Mark Sisson and others promote the so-called 80/20 rule; that is, 80% compliance with 20% flexibility for what some people call “cheats” and others call “staying sane.” There’s plenty of anecdote out there indicating that people do indeed experience significant improvements in health and body composition while enjoying a lot of breathing room in a generally primal(ish) eating plan.

But then there’s the other side. In their excellent book Protein Power, the Drs. Eades point out that the consumption of carbohydrate with other macronutrients (protein and fat), actually causes a greater insulin spike than the consumption of carbohydrate alone. If that is true, we have to ask ourselves whether I’d be doing my roomie a disservice by recommending that he increase fat and protein unless he is willing to let go of the carbs. After all, I’d hate to encourage further insulin resistance and fat storage by encouraging the consumption of high-fat AND high-carb meals that will raise blood sugar, necessitating an insulin release that promptly shuttles energy from both the carbs and the fat straight into those expanding fat cells without passing Go or collecting $200.

So what’s the answer?

Perhaps it is most practical to go back to the anecdotal evidence. A friend of mine recently cut back on grains and sugars – didn’t even remove them entirely! – and saw an impressive drop in blood pressure over the course of just a few weeks. Ironman recalls how, when he first started exploring primal, he cut out pasta and bread (but not all grains) and dropped ten pounds in two weeks – ten pounds, mind you, that had hovered around his middle despite years of extensive endurance athletics. The stories are varied and countless, but almost all indicate reasonable (and sometimes impressive) results from partial compliance.

So. If my roomie wants to consider 80/20, how might that look? I can think of a few options:

1. Calculate by number of meals. Say we figure on 3 meals per day, 7 days per week. That’s 21 meals per week. 20% of that equals 4.2 meals. So, he could eat 17 primal meals and 4 whatever-he-wants meals every week. Sounds reasonable. But, it doesn’t figure in impromptu passes by the office candy bowl, the temptation of ice cream with a late-night movie, that afternoon Mountain Dew habit…all of which cut pretty deeply into that 20%, leaving little wiggle room for actual meals.

2. Calculate by number of calories. My roomie is a pretty big guy, but not very active. For the sake of argument, let’s give him 2,200 calories per day. (Yes, I know it’s not all about calories, but about the hormonal impact of foods on energy usage. More on that later.) 2,200 calories per day x 7 days per week = 15,400 calories per week. 20% works out to 3,080 calories. That equals one Domino's pizza and a few bottles of soda. No more wiggle for the rest of the week. Of course, there’s the option of spreading it out a bit more, say over a few servings of pasta, a couple bowls of raisin bran, a some chocolate chip cookie dough, and a package of Jiffy cornbread mix. Livable? Depends who you are.

(Incidentally, for those who comprise their 20% of borderline primal goodies instead of SAD selections, 3,080 calories equals roughly four sweet potatoes, two bars of 85% chocolate, 6 ounces of aged Gouda, and a nightly glass of pinot noir.)

3. Forget the calculations. Of course, my roomie could choose to scrap the math altogether and shoot for 80% compliance without counting or tracking. For most people, this method will be the easiest to stomach – but I fear it will also be the least effective, mostly because people don’t usually have a good sense of how small 20% really is when you crowd it with big-ticket items like French fries and Milk Duds. Perhaps he could minimize the damage by trying for 100% on weekdays and complete freedom on weekends. More than a few bodybuilders and such swear by that kind of program.

…which leads me to a point that was called out during a recent discussion on the reader forums at Mark’s Daily Apple:

Fat + carbs + full glycogen stores = triglyceride factory (poor health and fat gain).

Fat + carbs + empty glycogen stores = glycogen storage (good health and potential for fat loss).

Duh. That’s pretty basic, but it’s easy to forget when we start thinking all about diet (which is, after all, the larger part of the leanness and health equation) and none about physical activity. If my roomie will drain his muscle and liver glycogen stores with, say, a couple heavy-lifting and a couple HIIT sessions per week, he’ll see much faster progress despite 20+% non-compliance on the nutrition side.

(But let’s not fall back on the old calories-in, calories-out theory of fat loss! Read this entertaining post by Tom Naughton for a more accurate accounting of what matters in terms of calorie intake and expenditure.)

Here’s another, important thought that came out of the forum discussion on being partly primal: It depends what part you choose. Pouring heavy cream on your Froot Loops because “fat is good!” won’t help you. Choosing to ditch sugar (even while holding onto grains, for now) will reap results. For many people – and I suspect my roomie is among them – the baby-steps approach will prove more manageable than the cold-turkey method I prefer. Every step away from the SAD will get you further down the right road.

There’s more than one way to skin a sabre tooth tiger.

Making Tracks

I am a nerd.

I carry books everywhere, complete with "to research further" lists for bookmarks. I set aside Trivial Pursuit cards as reminders to look up more information after the game. I use spreadsheets for everything from calculating my annual hay order to plotting my endurance horses' conditioning schedules...for the whole year.

So, no one will be surprised to learn that I like to track my food intake.

One of the beautiful things about primal (or un-weighed/unmeasured paleo) eating is that, in the vast majority of cases, there's no need to chart every bite of food that goes down the hatch. Most of us can simply commit to eating only certain types of foods, paying reasonable attention to quantities of particularly calorie-dense choices like nuts, and forget the tedium of counting carbs and calories and all the rest.

But as I said, I'm a nerd. Obsessive, some would say. I actually enjoy plugging my meals into Fitday or My Fitness Pal, tweaking selections and quantities to get just the right macronutrient balance day after day, maintaining accuracy down to the last almond. I like poring over the resultant charts and graphs, noting trends in the data, comparing my intake and performance and looking for ways to improve.

That all sounds useful, right? And it is. To a point.

After which it becomes unproductive.

Or even destructive.

You see, my problem with a paint-by-numbers approach to eating is that I begin planning meals around the necessity of filling in particular categories:

Let's see...I'll need more fat tomorrow...better add an avocado to my breakfast salad. Oops! That bumped my carbs too high. Okay, so I'll nix the carrot from the roasted mixed veggies at dinner. What about protein? Hmm, looking good, but a touch on the high side. Better cut that leftover pork roast down from six ounces to four...but then I'll get hungry. I have room for more fat, though, so how about I add a shot of coconut milk? Yes, that's better...but it inched the carbs back up a shade...

Not a good way to practice listening to one's own body. Not a good way to live on the least-best quantites.

Ah, what's this? I have another 200 calories available. Dark chocolate sounds lovely, now that I mention it...

Certainly not a good way to let intermittent fasting happen -- which is exactly what did happen the day after I decided to suppress my inner nerd and resume eating by feel: I ate dinner at 7:30 p.m. Went to bed. Woke up, fed the horses, drove to the office, hurried to a meeting, drank some coffee, felt energetic and bright, carried on working right up until 12:30, when I broke my 17-hour fast with a bowl of leftover red-hot chicken, vegetable, and coconut curry.

Cool.

Anyway.

I quit tracking because I realized that I was using the practice to control my intake rather than to learn from it -- and as a result, the intake was controlling me. Yes, it was fun and interesting, but it was neither productive nor beneficial.

I don't mean to say that tracking has no place in primal living, at least for the nerds among us. I found it useful when I first went primal because I needed to learn the carb content of the foods I eat most often. Fine. It became useful again when I got curious about the macronutrient rations to which eating "by feel" had led me. Fine.

Tracking lost its usefulness when it told me what to eat, rather than me telling it what I ate. The time had come to let it go.

Will I ever track again? Sure. When I have a good reason to. But when I've learned what I need to know, I'll make tracks for the "log out" button posthaste.

Now, y'all better be prepared to remind me I said that.

Winds of Change: Primal Fitness, Year One, Part Two

[Continued from Part One in response to this Reader Question.]

I got serious about strength training in March 2009. By mid-May, things were looking pretty good. It's amazing what a few sprints and a bit of bodyweight work can do.


Having layered on some basic strength, I began looking for ways to add intensity to my training. While the format of my workouts remained much as they began, I increased their difficulty without purchasing equipment by:

• Graduating from standard push-ups to decline push-ups, starting with my feet on an 8-inch step, then moving up to 2 and eventually 3 steps.
• Transitioning from standard hanging leg raises (to "L" position) to the knee-to-elbow version.
• Adding pull-up efforts to the end of my pull-downs. I also did many pull-downs in which I lowered an inch, then pulled back up and inch, lowered three inches and pulled back up two, etc. It was a great triumph the day I managed my first-ever, unassisted pull-up!
• Making a "weight vest" out of an old school backpack filled with gallon-sized zip-top bags full of sand. Voila! A free and easy way to add 30 pounds to my squats and lunges. Holding 12-lb dumbbells allowed me to bring the total up to 54 pounds, which made a huge difference in my lower body musculature.

Notes:

On modifying exercises -- I discovered that although I experienced great benefits from increasing the difficulty of standard exercises (such as by switching to decline push-ups or knee-to-elbow HLRs), it paid to go back to the original exercise periodically. The modified versions may be more intense, but they also involve different angles of motion; if you only practice the modified version, you'll lose capacity in the original.

On grip -- As I worked on HLRs, I noticed that the limiting factor on my number of reps tended to be not core strength, but grip. My hands and forearms weren't up to dangling from the bar that long. Continued pull-up and HLR work got me through, but months later I discovered an exercise that would have sped the process: Farmer's Walks. Don't have two barbells? Try buckets full of water. After all, my fortuitous discovery was the result of a cold snap that forced me to haul water by hand to my 9 horses. Farmer's walks, indeed!

On training around injuries -- Did I mention that I tore my hamstring in April? The result of a nasty riding accident, that injury forced me to inject some extra creativity into my workouts. Lower body work such as squats and lunges was obviously out, as were sprints and distance runs. Even walking was off the table for several weeks. So, I decided to take advantage of my recovery time to focus on upper body work. I did push-ups, pull-ups (well, pull-downs), HLRs, planks, side planks, overhead dumbbell presses, and delt raises galore. And guess what? I emerged on the other side of that injury fitter than I began. Score!

On the role of diet -- One can't ignore the importance of nutrition in maintaining or improving fitness despite injury-induced modifications. Though I hadn't yet discovered primal eating, I kept my diet clean (that is, free of processed foods) throughout my recovery. Leanness is 80% diet, and despite my carb-laden, flegan choices, I didn't gain a single pound of fat during those weeks.

Speaking of diet, by early June I realized it was time to add more protein to my daily intake. This meant first the re-introduction of eggs (2 a day), followed by fish (several times weekly). Meanwhile, I was fed up with acne and stomach bloating, and looking for answers. That search led me to grain-free nutrition, the truth about fats and carbohydrates, and finally to the Primal Blueprint. I wrote about the transition here.

As summer progressed and life changes demanded that I be able to run my farm alone, I placed increasing value on functional strength. Cardiovascular fitness is great, but the ability to lift heavy things is invaluable when it comes to laying in a winter's supply of hay, repairing fence, lugging bags of feed, and watering livestock despite frozen pipes.

Yes, farm work is demanding -- but not necessarily consistent. I looked for ways to continue building strength during the lulls and, though I found many, my desire to own a bunch of iron increased. When I finally got it, the nature of my workouts changed. More about that in Part Three.