We Love Paleo (2016) Movie Script

[Woman]
I had chronic brain fog.
I never felt rested
when I woke up.
I got migraines all the time.
I was hungry all the time,
and people feared
for their lives
when they were around
me when I got hungry,
because I crashed
and turned into a crazy person.
And just felt
generally cranky and...
bad, basically.
The outlook on life
prior to being diagnosed
and figuring out
what was going on
was pretty bleak.
I had chronic fatigue syndrome,
fibromyalgia.
[Woman] Chronic migraines,
that was a huge one.
I had chronic
gastrointestinal issues.
And I saw gastroenterologists
for several years,
and no one ever told me
it could be related to food.
I thought that I had
early-onset
rheumatoid arthritis.
I had chronic adult acne.
I had numbness in my feet
and in my limbs.
I was always cold.
Everything and anything I took
really didn't provide me
any relief whatsoever.
How I would I have been?
35, or 34, or something.
You're probably not supposed
to feel that crappy at that age,
right?
That's not old.
But I felt old.
I had come
to just really live with it.
It became part of my life.
[Man]
I remember feeling strange,
feeling weird
from very early on, you know.
Not feeling healthy.
Not feeling like
I lived to full capacity.
Even as a child.
And that's weird.
I mean, the thing is
everyone is so sick
in this country.
Our food system is so broken.
[Man] The solution given to me
by my GP was,
"Don't worry.
If you take these meds now,
"you'll be able to keep these...
you know, suppress these issues
that you're facing,
and you should be able
to live longer."
[Man] It's amazing...
You know, it's like
the human body
just gets comfy with stuff
or accepting of conditions
and just kind of like...
It's like,
"Oh, this is gonna hurt."
Or, "I have a bum knee,"
or I have a whatever.
"We'll just kind of
deal with it. We'll compensate.
We'll be fine."
And so, you get used
to those things.
And so,
the same thing happened with me.
I just felt horrible,
but did it for so long
that I forgot how bad
I actually felt
and how it felt to feel good.
I was never extremely sick,
but I was never well either.
I was vegetarian
for about six years.
I ate fish sometimes,
but was mostly vegetarian,
and also mostly dairy-free,
because the person
I was with at the time
had a dairy allergy.
So in addition
to being vegetarian,
I was also eating way more soy
than anyone should ever consume
over their lifetime.
Because we had
all the dairy substitutes,
like the fake butter,
and the soy milk, and the...
I don't even remember what else,
but it was all pretty horrible.
And I also worked
in vegetarian restaurants
at the time.
That was my life, basically,
and was eating seitan,
which is wheat gluten,
sandwiches
on rye bread.
So, I was just eating
a straight-up gluten sandwich.
So gluten and soy
were, like, my main staples
in my diet,
and I was completely
the angry chef that threw pans.
I was... psychotic
and not a happy person.
And of course,
there were other factors.
It wasn't 100% diet,
but that played a huge role.
I was definitely
the sickest I've ever been
and the unhappiest
I've ever been.
[Woman]
My husband was Paleo
for almost a year.
And through that year,
every time I ate,
I had just horrid pain,
stomach pain,
and he would say,
"I really think
that you have Coeliac,
and I think you need
to get it checked out."
And if you have it,
if you take about a pinch
of saffron, you'll want to...
[Michelle]
My specialty as a chef
was Italian.
After about a year,
we were having a celebration.
It was one of
the kids' birthdays.
And I was making, of course,
all of that,
and there he was,
making his own dinner.
And I looked at him,
and I said,
"You're, like, really never
gonna have my pizza
and pasta again, are you?"
And he goes, "No."
And he said, "I really think
that you have Coeliac,
and you really need
to go get it checked out."
They checked
for the wrong antibodies.
I checked out negative.
The doctor
that was sitting there
talking to me said,
"You're negative,
but you know
what we're gonna do?"
He said, "I really think...
From what you're telling me,
"I really think
you might have Coeliac,
and so, we're gonna do
a biopsy of your colon."
He starts telling me
how he's going to
cut into my colon,
and as he's telling me,
he's... nodding off,
falling asleep.
And I'm just like,
"Hmm. That doesn't sound
like a good option to me."
And I thought, "Why is
the next step so invasive?
"Why isn't it
just cut these foods
from you diet?
Why not start there?"
[Cain] I got diagnosed
with Coeliac Disease
about four years ago
and was lucky enough
where I had typical GI issues
and very physical manifestations
of that.
So, if I ate gluten,
I knew that I ate it
and felt horrible.
So, went gluten-free,
and that did not fix things.
We've tried gluten-free.
We've tried gluten-free vegan.
We tried all of those different
variations of it.
I ended up with no energy
and... puffy.
Is the only way
I can kind of describe that.
It's like my body fat percentage
took a nosedive
in the wrong direction.
And I was lethargic,
and I just didn't feel good
that way.
So we did that
for maybe six months or so
and then said
that's enough of that...
and went back.
[Woman] I grew up
in Olympia, Washington.
I grew up
in a totally normal family,
your standard, American family,
and grew up eating cereal,
and bagels,
and Subway sandwiches.
And there was no food
in the food that I was eating.
There was
no pasture-roaming animals.
There was no grass-fed meat.
There were no seasonal,
local vegetables.
It was like
whatever we could pick up
and throw in a plastic bag
at the grocery store,
and, like, whatever is on sale.
A general health consciousness
was very strongly present
in my life
because my parents
ran a pharmacy.
My father was a pharmacist,
which means that we ate healthy
according
to conventional wisdom
on what is a healthy diet.
So I ate very little meat.
No fat at all.
That was forbidden.
We had the fat substitutes,
of course, every day
on the table.
Margarine instead of butter,
the heart-healthy alternative.
None of us
in the family was healthy.
My father suffered
psoriasis heavily.
My mother had severe asthma.
My sister,
which I discovered now,
clearly had a histamine problem.
I had a number of health issues.
You know,
I had this asthma as well,
skin problems.
Major energy dips
throughout the day
as being a child.
Now, I realize
what was the reason for that.
I was never able
to wake up in the morning.
It was hell
to drag my body to school
and to pay attention in school.
I couldn't...
It was impossible.
I would fall asleep
in the first hours of class.
Nobody could tell me
why that was,
and nobody questioned it even.
So from this background...
You know,
it would have been different
if we had grown up in a family
eating junk food all the time.
We did not.
So we were obviously
doing everything correct
according to
conventional standards.
[timer beeping]
I had several inflammations
going on in my body.
I had aching joints
all the time.
I was lethargic,
tired all day long.
It doesn't even matter
if I had slept six hours,
or 12, or 14 hours,
I was just tired the entire day.
My life before going Paleo
was pretty much that
of a fitness nut.
Like, just doing silly workouts
at a commercial gym.
I think people are really tired
of the conventional stuff
they've been told for years,
so they, eventually,
are really ready for a change.
[Man] I went to my doctor
in my early 30s.
And my doctor said to me,
"Based on your blood work,
"and based on the results
that we've got back,
you have an increased risk
of X, Y, and Z in terms
of lifestyle diseases."
My blood sugar was very high.
My cholesterol levels were high.
My blood pressure was very high.
When I asked him
for lifestyle alternatives,
he said, "Well,
you're eating a low-fat diet,
"and you're currently
going to the gym,
"so there's nothing else
you can do.
"You're kind of
doing the right things.
"You're not a drinker.
You don't smoke.
Everything is fine.
"It's just about
your genetic heritage
and the fact you're getting
a little bit older."
I didn't accept that,
really because I was scared
of taking those medications,
especially in the long term.
[Man] I've been practicing
as a doctor for about 25 years.
Most of my patients come
with what we would call chronic
or sort of
long-standing health issues.
Some of the problems
might be things like
irritable bowel syndrome,
diabetes, headaches, migraine,
general fatigue.
Usually, the individual
has either not had
a good experience
with conventional medicine
or conventional approaches,
and/or there really isn't
very much
the conventional approaches
can offer that person.
But this is
what's happening to people.
They're being told,
"Just accept it.
"Here you go.
Here's your diagnosis.
"I'm sorry.
This is the pill. Take it.
I'm sorry. You don't get
any other choices."
There's a reason why...
conventional wisdom says,
"Do this."
Everybody does it,
and it ends up all crappy.
Well, I used to work
in a hospital.
And I became...
Once I learned about Paleo
and the benefits,
I became so frustrated
at the amount of drugs that
were being pumped into people
for stuff that could be solved
with a good diet
and some exercise.
Wisdom is just such a... Ugh!
It's such an oxymoron.
When we use
the word "conventional wisdom,"
it seems like forever,
but it's actually
maybe five years old,
or 10 years old,
or 20 years old.
It mortifies me sometimes
to think
of the numbers of people
that are sick
because they've been lied to.
[John] When people take
conventional nutritional advice,
as we generally have been
for the last 30 or 40 years,
to eat less fat and
more carbohydrate-rich foods,
including starchy carbohydrates,
this isn't good for health.
It damages health.
People underestimate
how powerful taking charge
of their diet can be.
We are just taught
to walk into a grocery store,
and if it's in a box,
it's in there, it's good for us.
We can consume it.
It's safe
for human consumption, right?
But the fact of the matter is
when you approach food
without any of that awareness,
you're not tapped in at all
to what your body needs,
what it needs
to function and thrive.
What you put into your body,
that's your fuel.
If you're not fueling
your body right,
it'll break down at some point,
you know?
[Cain]
This grain, you know, diet
pure-bred thing
is pushed on people
from, like, grade school.
It's like
that's all people know.
You have to be able to recognize
when the government,
and the corporations,
and the institutions,
and the society
are lying to you,
or deceiving you,
or just simply don't know
what they're talking about.
They're ignorant.
And find out
what's driving them.
Where's the money, so to speak.
We used to be
instinctual creatures
who would hunt and gather
our own food,
whether it be berries,
or vegetables,
or free-range animals,
you know, deer or bison.
Morning, mate.
[Peter] I have always had
a really bad relationship
with food,
so I knew
something had to change.
I wanted to make sure
it was a sustainable change.
-Back to work.
-Yeah, I feel rested though.
I'm way better than I was
when I left.
I'd always struggle with
sleeping and training really.
I'd always trained
since a very early age.
I've always played
pretty competitive sports,
but there's always been
kind of something missing.
I always knew I wasn't getting
the most out of what I could be
essentially.
[John] We had
a patient come in one day.
He was in his early 70s.
He came in for
a relatively minor operation.
He'd never been
in hospital before.
That was the the thing
that really, sort of,
stuck out at me.
He also
had never really been unwell.
And I was amazed
at how energized and vital
this person was.
You know,
he's sort of 50 years
older than me
and in a much better
state of health.
I asked him
to what he attributed
his good health,
and his wellness,
and his energy,
and he explained to me
that he thought a lot of it
was down to
some very simple things
that he did in his life.
The way he ate.
He was a regular cyclist,
for example.
He was also just fundamentally
very interested in life.
My curiosity
got the better of me
again later that day
when I went into town
and ended up buying
a book on nutrition.
I decided
to apply the principles
in my own life.
Once I'd done that,
the effects
on my own health and wellness
were really nothing short
of transformational.
I like to eat food
that resembles what it is
in its true, natural form.
I like to be close to nature.
I like to be outdoors a lot.
I like to sleep
according to my natural cycle.
Wake up when my body feels
like waking up.
I like moving
in the very functional,
sort of, primal way,
so that's hiking,
and running, and rock climbing.
Just being out there,
and using my body,
and actually really feel
like I'm living
instead of sort of existing
in an office cubicle,
if that makes sense.
So, to me, Paleo represents
that very natural lifestyle.
Being in the sun,
and getting lots of vitamin D,
eating sustainable food,
cooking from scratch.
It's a slow kind of living,
which is also not sort of slow
in its speed.
It's just sort of coming back
to the way we used to live
and used to feel,
I suppose, as well.
[Woman] When I realized
that the Paleo lifestyle
was scientifically sound,
I would say it's been
over the last three years.
I mean, I came
from a traditional,
medical background.
I don't recall ever taking
a single nutrition course.
So most of my knowledge
of how our diets impacted health
was similar to
where everybody else
was getting their information.
But over the last few years,
I've been doing a fellowship
in anti-aging
and regenerative medicine,
and their focus is on diet
to a certain extent.
And so that's
when I started to realize
that there was
a lot of scientific evidence
that had been out there
for years
that was being ignored
because it wasn't consistent
with the conventional wisdom.
And so,
it was just pushed aside.
But I saw studies
that were done 20 years ago,
30 years ago,
that supported
the improvements in health
from a Paleo-type lifestyle.
So, that's when
I started to realize
that there was legitimacy
on a scientific basis.
Paleo is eating whole foods,
real foods, that you...
either get from a farm,
or you get
from, you know, your rancher.
I mean, you can get them
from in the store obviously,
but you don't get them
from a box.
It also sometimes
has shrimp paste
as an optional ingredient.
[Simone]
It's about eating real food.
Eating food
that our grandparents
would recognize as food.
Eating food that
isn't from a factory
but is from farms, and ranches,
and our backyards optimally
if we can garden
without killing everything,
which I can't.
There's a very different
consciousness
about the sourcing of your food,
where it comes from,
how it's prepared,
the oils that it's prepared in,
and just kind of
your relationship
to being able
to prepare those things yourself
in your own kitchen.
The focus is all about
eating high-quality foods,
eating natural foods,
and eating foods
that are actually good for you
and will help fuel you,
as opposed to just being
for weight loss.
What would common sense dictate
would be the best diet
for us as a species?
Well, you could argue
a diet based on the foods
that we have been eating
the longest in terms of
our time on this planet.
I mean, those are the foods
we have evolved to eat,
that we're likely
to be best adapted to,
and are gonna be broadly
the best for us.
So, how long
have we been evolving?
Well, it depends who you ask.
But if you ask an evolutionist,
there's a pretty stock answer.
It's about
two and a half million years.
[Darryl]
Paleo from a dietary perspective
is really a way of modeling
what our ancient ancestor did,
in terms of hunter-gatherers,
and taking the best of that
and applying it
to what we should do today
in terms of food.
In terms of our food choices,
it's wild meat, wild fish,
vegetation, fruit, nuts,
and really trying
to look at the kind of
macro-nutrient ratios
that our hunter-gatherer
ancestors had
as part and parcel
of their eating habits.
[Patricia] The diet
really has to be in place
for everything else
to work as well.
When we treat patients,
really I would say...
over 80% of what we do
has to do with the diet.
At this point,
it's an intervention.
-[Man] Absolutely.
-And we're trying to get you
as healthy as we can get you.
-We can see the results already.
-[Patricia] Right. Right.
And so, our goal is always
to have you get most of
your nutrition from your food.
[Man]
My doctor was quite surprised
to see the difference.
-[Woman]
A-plus is what he said.
-Really?
And you got to change
some of your medications, right?
-Yes, he has.
-Okay. What did he take off?
Well, we got rid
of the atenolol.
[Patricia] Oh, good. Okay.
So since November then,
your weight has dropped
about 22, 24 pounds?
Yeah. Yes.
-And that's just...
Is that still continuing?
-Yes.
-Are you plateauing or...
-No.
-No, still... Okay.
-[Woman] It's a nice surprise
when you get on the scale
and go, "Whoo!
Where does that go?"
With the diet that you're on,
and as you lose weight,
your need for that...
Your insulin sensitivity
will hopefully improve,
and you'll need less and less
of that medication.
And as you drop
your blood pressure,
or your weight,
your blood pressure medication
is gonna come down too.
But it's like
one happens and then the next.
And then one happens
and then the next.
You're not depriving yourself
of anything.
The only thing
you're depriving yourself of is
chips, and bread...
and all the things
that aren't good for you.
[Patricia]
That you don't miss.
A co-worker said to me...
They were having a pizza party
for someone who was retiring.
So I had my stuff,
and they said...
She turned to me...
And she's had a heart attack,
and she has been told
not to eat the fast food
and stuff that she always eats.
"When are you gonna get back
to eating real food?"
And I was like,
"But I am. But I am."
"When are you gonna get
to eat real food again?"
And she's just slopping down
her tacos from Taco Bell
every day.
A lot of times
once the diet is in place,
the others follow.
The sleep improves.
The weight goes away.
We were satisfied
with what we knew to be,
and we thought this was it.
You grow old, and you die,
and you feel miserable,
and you have aches and pains,
and that's just part
of the life process.
And we know that
that doesn't have to be.
So, we're moving more.
We're feeling better.
It's incredible.
[Irena] I remember growing up,
and my grandmother would
go to the markets every morning,
and she would buy meat
from the butcher.
She would bring back
bags of vegetables and fruit.
We would go hunting, fishing,
quite often foraging
for berries and mushrooms,
and she would cook from scratch.
That's not that far back.
When people say, "Well,
actually it's not possible
to try and live,
you know, ancestral way
in the modern world,"
I say,
"Well, we're not actually,
literally doing that."
We're just saying,
"Hey, how about we take away
some of these industrial
processes,
"and mutating our food,
"and changing things
the way they should be
naturally?
And just try and leave
a little bit more the way that
we're intended to by nature."
[John] So when did
we first start
to cultivate crops,
things like corn and wheat?
Well, the paleontological record
suggests
that this was probably
just about 10,000 years ago.
Now, that sounds
like a long time ago,
but from
an evolutionary perspective,
it's very recent,
and genes change very slowly.
While foods like grains,
and refined sugar,
and refined vegetable oils
are relatively recent
additions to the diet,
the average diet
has about 70% of calories
contributed by these foods.
[Simone] A lot of people
do have to eat every two hours
to sustain their blood sugar
because they are eating foods
that are causing them to crash,
and I used to be
one of those people.
And I used to have
to bring food with me
all the time,
because if I went
two hours without eating,
I would crash
and feel... really awful.
When people think that
they need to eat every two hours
to sustain their blood sugar,
that's 'cause
they're eating foods
that are not sustaining
their blood sugar.
If all you're craving
is bread, and cookies,
and pancakes, and cupcakes,
and all that,
then yes, it is restrictive,
because you shouldn't be
eating those things.
If you eat a lot of,
for example, either sugary
or starchy foods,
you're going to tend to get
quite high levels of sugar
in the bloodstream.
If blood sugar levels
go very high,
the problems is
is that a huge surge
of insulin
can drive blood sugar levels
to sort of sub-normal levels.
When blood sugar levels get low,
people can get tired
and a bit listless.
In fact,
that was the major cause
of my problems with fatigue
when I was a lot younger.
But also it can tend
to make people hungry
and to crave foods,
specifically for, say,
sweet foods,
be it chocolate, or candy,
or biscuits, or cookies,
and foods like those.
That's a really good way
of describing it,
a slave to food,
because so many of us
are dependent
on these addictions.
You know, we have this...
We actually are addicted
to sugar and carbohydrates.
People say, "Oh, no,
I just like bread,
and I like pasta."
And I say,
"No, no, you're addicted
to bread and pasta."
My biggest challenge
becoming Paleo was
giving up... carbs and sugar.
Um, it was awful.
It is hard,
because they're craving
their sugar fix.
Once you get past
that withdrawal stage,
it becomes much easier.
Once you start eating
satiating foods
that are nutritious,
you don't...
Well, A, you start craving
nutritious foods.
That's another little thing
that's changed.
You don't feel
you need to eat right away
to, kind of...
to feel human again, you know.
Call it "hangry."
People would just get hungry
and angry,
and you don't want
to be near them at that time
until they get
their little muesli bar.
A lot of people
that have the experience
of craving sweet foods
and then succumbing
to eating them
imagine that
they lack self control,
or they have a weak will,
or an inadequate personality,
but actually, the reality is
for the majority
of these people,
the problem isn't some sort
of psychological frailty,
it's a physiological imbalance.
And very often,
that imbalance has been induced
by eating
a supposedly "healthy,"
low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet.
The majority of people
with Coeliac Disease
don't have digestive...
uh, symptoms.
So most people think
it's Coeliac Disease,
they think,
"Oh, you got GI issues.
You have stomach aches,
and you have
all this kind of stuff."
And that's not the case at all.
Most people don't have
those symptoms.
Most people are
just munching away
on their Wonder Bread and stuff,
and they have no idea
that by eating that
that's tied to their migraines
or their, you know...
whatever other condition
that they have.
Whether it's gluten intolerance
or Coeliac Disease,
it can manifest
in any part of your body.
Not just the digestive tract.
Most people think
"Oh, I don't have stomach ache,
then I'm fine."
And that's not the case at all.
It's actually...
almost on the verge of scary
how much it can make me...
not be pleasant.
I mean, like a...
complete asshole.
I mean, just, like,
a complete jerk.
And I know
that I'm being a jerk,
so it's like, I'm like,
"God, why are you being..."
And it's just...
It's like I can't do anything
to change it.
Yeah, gluten is nasty.
There seems to be
an increasingly-recognized
correlation
between gluten issues
and brain issues.
And whether that's the form
of neurodegenerative diseases
like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's,
whether that's
attention deficit disorders
in children,
whether that's even autism.
You know,
conventional wisdom is,
"Grains are good,
and you gotta eat..."
however many servings
they say you have to eat
of grains now
and stuff like that.
People need to question
where that came from,
how that came about,
why that started,
why we're doing all that.
Not just...
accepting it at face value.
There's ample evidence
that grains are detrimental
to health
because of
their anti-nutrient qualities.
So, basically,
they contain compounds
that are harmful
and detrimental to the gut.
So they affect digestion.
They irritate
the lining of the gut.
They prevent certain nutrients
from being absorbed.
By doing so,
you're not getting the best
out of the other foods
that you're eating.
When our colon is damaged...
It's protected by one cell,
with protection,
so it's easy to--
Like this.
I just damaged my colon.
That's all it would take,
something like that,
that kind of an irritation,
like that.
Our mum had, like,
a wheat and gluten intolerance,
and we've both kind of
picked that up as well,
So, I think
one of the biggest things
for me especially
is the fact that
I'm not bloated anymore.
I'm not... I don't feel
that real lethargy
after I've eaten a big meal.
And I'm now eating
feeling sustainably full,
and then feeling good an hour,
two hours later,
rather than wanting
to sort of fall asleep
on the sofa.
-Yeah, that was big.
-Big difference, definitely.
-Mark, will you bring me down
some packs, mate?
-Yeah.
Can I have some mango?
[Mark] I used to work shifts
in a hospital,
so coming from a shift,
to the gym to work out,
there was nothing available.
I couldn't just stop
in a supermarket,
and that really frustrated me.
And there was nothing.
You could either buy
a chicken breast
that was pumped full
of potato starch,
or rice starch, or something.
Or you could have some fruit.
And there was nothing complete,
nothing that would help us,
so we decided
to do it ourselves.
[Peter] If we'd have known
what we know now,
like, 10 or 15 years ago,
we would have changed,
like, someone's life
that's really close to us.
Like, our mum died from cancer,
so... if we'd have known
all this stuff 15, 20 years ago,
potentially,
we could have changed it,
you know.
Yeah, we maybe couldn't have
changed the fact that she died,
-but we could have probably...
-Yeah.
Made a big impact.
Yeah, definitely. So it's...
And this is why, like,
it's so close to us.
And the gym,
and the whole ethos is
a lifestyle shift,
and we just wanna try
and help, like... shift that,
'cause we know that
there's better stuff out there,
you know.
For an increasing proportion
of the population,
the grains are very inflammatory
in the bowel,
and that sets up
a lot of inflammation
elsewhere in the body.
And since inflammation
is the main driver
for disease,
then we wanna keep
the inflammation low.
Back when I was still eating
a standard, American diet,
and I was
a traditionally-practicing
physician,
I had a daughter who struggled
with a lot of health issues.
Primarily,
gastrointestinal-type issues.
So, we went the gamut of
the traditional medicine model.
You know,
she saw gastroenterologists,
and had studies done,
and was given medications,
none of which
made any difference
in her situation.
And then she, on her own,
tried different kinds of diets.
'Cause she knew intuitively
that there had to be
a dietary component
to what was going on,
even though I couldn't really
guide her at that point.
But she tried vegetarianism
and veganism.
None of those
were healthy for her either.
She ended up in the hospital
several times actually.
At the time, my mom was
a very conventional physician
of Western medicine,
and she did not agree at all
with what I was doing.
I mean, at the point,
her belief system was
that supplements and medication
could really help cure
chronic conditions.
It was a relief to me
to see her improving finally.
I did feel badly
I didn't have the knowledge base
years earlier
that I could have helped her.
You know, I grew up
living off of these foods
that were in the middle
of these alleys
of the grocery stores
when nothing I was eating
was ever alive.
And that's what we're taught,
and it's just so broken to me.
As a kid,
when I ate stuff like this,
I drained half the box.
-[Woman] A big bowl?
-A big bowl.
So there's 18 servings.
Let's just round it off
and say 20.
So let's say when, you know,
the kid goes to town on this,
you've got 10 servings.
That's like 270 grams of carbs
in a sitting,
which is a piece of cake to do.
-Absolutely no problem
with that.
-That's huge.
Yeah, same serving size.
Even a little more
carbohydrate-dense.
And, you know, honestly,
this stuff would be so sweet
that I might even
at less than that
in a way even as a kid.
So, then you've got the Kashi.
It's whole-grain,
and, you know,
it looks like hurt seals
are being saved on this thing,
and all that stuff.
So their serving
is a little bit larger.
It's a full cup.
It's 41 grams of carbs.
So, really, I think this one
is even more carb-dense than...
-[Woman] Than the other.
-Than the Frosted Flakes are.
So, yeah, this stuff
is so damn yummy,
and it's really
just not very good for you,
just given
the carbohydrate content.
And, again,
nobody is gonna sit down
and eat a cup of this.
Well, you know, I think
it's probably easy
in the morning
for kids to get up
and eat cereal
and have some milk.
But what we're seeing
is an epidemic
of obesity
and insulin resistance
with children today.
-Right.
-Which is... And diabetes,
which is a huge problem.
And these boxes
and bags of food
that are prepared
with high carbohydrates
and high sugar
-are definitely causing that.
-Right.
And the soda at lunch
and the Gatorade
at the soccer game
before dinner. Yeah.
And pretty soon,
they have a carbohydrate load
-that far exceeds anything that
any human should ever consume.
-Right.
So sugar comes, obviously,
from sugar in the diet,
but it also comes from starch.
Starch is sugar.
It's just chains
of glucose molecules.
When we eat starchy foods,
like bread, potatoes, rice,
pasta, and breakfast cereals,
generally,
we get considerable amounts
of sugar liberated
into the bloodstream.
It will obviously lead
to considerable surges
in the hormone insulin.
The purpose of insulin
in that stage is
to force the blood glucose
into muscle tissue,
into the cells
to be utilized as energy.
Any the excess
is stored in the liver.
Longer-term storage is glycogen.
And then beyond that,
it's stored as fat.
Elevated insulin basically means
we have a constant supply
of energy,
and so, there is no need
for your body to break down
further energy stores,
i.e. fat stores,
to provide energy.
So, what insulin does is
facilitate the uptake of fat
into the fat cells.
The fat can get out again,
but unfortunately,
insulin reduces
the body's ability to do that.
It impairs
what we call "lipolysis",
which is fancy language
for release of fat basically.
Eating little and often,
which is what
conventional wisdom tells us
to manage blood glucose,
is far less effective
than eating a larger meal.
We're always digesting
and never building.
It's the wrong system.
We need to eat,
absorb what we're eating,
digest it,
build an anabolic environment.
Go hours without eating.
Then eat again.
So, we're not grazers.
We're not ruminants.
There's just something wrong
with that whole concept,
evolutionary,
dietary health-wise.
If you're eating a diet
based on foods
that help basically
bring insulin levels down,
stabilize blood sugar levels,
then you're going
to facilitate fat loss.
You can effectively then
use that fat as a fuel,
a bit like a hibernating bear.
Once I cut out the grains
and the really high-carby stuff,
I was able to go
hours and hours without eating,
and I might feel hungry.
I might feel like I need to eat.
I'm getting to the point
where I'm hungry.
But it wasn't an emergency.
I could go without eating,
which I found really strange,
and not feel really hungry.
And then eat dinner,
and then be fine,
and then continue eating
the next day as normal.
Essentially, feeding off
your own fat
coupled with the fact
that you've probably stabilized
blood sugar levels
and are gonna be less prone
to low blood sugar levels
that can trigger hunger
is going to leave people
fundamentally less hungry.
If you take individuals
off their supposedly healthy
high-carb diet
and put them on something
a bit lower-carb,
a bit more Paleo,
then they automatically
eat less.
And I've seen this
time and again in practice.
Typically, people will eat
several hundred calories less
each day eating this way.
So now, you have a diet
that facilitates fat loss,
that is fundamentally healthy,
that does not
leave people hungry.
[Boris] I went through
a very significant stage
of a classic
body builder's diet
in the sense
of many small meals a day
with a decline in carbohydrates
throughout the day.
Absolutely no fat.
And so, this lead
to several crash diets even
because I wasn't able
to shed fat.
I actually invented
a diet of my own
at a certain point,
which was a bar of chocolate
and many liters of water a day.
Just to say how far it went.
It led to a very unnatural
and disturbed take on diet
and relation with food.
From the age of 16
until the age of about 25...
That's almost 10 years.
I was obsessed
with eating low-fat food.
It was drilled into me
through magazine articles
and TV ads,
and everything
had to be low-fat.
Who knows
how much damage I've done
by cutting out
all the actual goodness
of saturated fats in the foods.
That just kind of stuck with me.
That was
the hardest thing to shift
when I started eating Paleo.
To shift my thinking
from saturated fat is bad
to actually, saturated fat
is not the enemy.
It's the high-processed sugars
and carbohydrates that's causing
a lot of the problems.
Reality is
if you look at the evidence,
there isn't really
much to be feared in fat.
It doesn't appear
to be inherently fattening.
And that's possibly
because of its impact
or lack of impact
on certain hormones,
including insulin.
It helps transport
essential fatty acids
and fat-soluble vitamins
and nutrients to our body.
Without that ability,
we wouldn't be able to absorb
all our fat-soluble vitamins
and nutrients.
A low-fat diet
makes that very difficult.
There are many ways
to lose weight.
And some people can lose weight
on a low-fat diet.
I was able to manage my weight
for a very long time
based on a low-fat diet,
but I wasn't healthy.
So, weight alone is not...
shouldn't be seen as the mark
of good health.
Though I was
on very low-fat diets,
you know,
your skin will deteriorate.
Your hair will be in, you know,
much worse condition.
In the world
of very low-fat diets being
fashionable to normal,
conventional wisdom telling us,
"That's the norm."
We tend to kind of avoid
dietary fat,
but it's extremely important.
For myself, as being male,
and suffering
from low testosterone
for much of my adult life,
part of that reason
was because I wasn't eating
any, any, any fat
that I could be aware of.
I was minimizing fat
at every single opportunity.
And it wasn't till I started
adding dietary fat to my diet,
that I started to have
healthy levels of testosterone.
If we did not eat fat,
we would die.
There's essential fatty acids.
There are essential amino acids.
If we do not eat protein,
we will die.
There are
no essential carbohydrates.
The fact that we're suffering
from a lot of diseases
in terms of mental degeneration.
A lot of this, again, is linked
to excess carbohydrates
and not enough...
And this following
a low-fat diet.
Most of our brain is fat.
Our cell membranes
are part of fat.
It provides structure
and integrity to every cell
in the body.
It's not just an energy source.
But as an energy source,
it is far superior
to glucose and carbohydrates
in every measure.
It's the preferred fuel
for our heart.
A lot of hormones are reliant
on access to dietary fat
and cholesterol,
dietary cholesterol.
My family is
one of those families
with "high cholesterol."
My grandma has been eating
margarine since the 50s
when one of her family members
had a heart attack
at a young age
and is still horrified
of an egg yolk.
[Farley]
Some people find a correlation
between dietary cholesterol
and heart disease.
That's wrong.
The problem with cholesterol
and heart disease is
oxidated cholesterol,
which is inflamed cholesterol.
Not dietary
or serum cholesterols.
When you have an inflammation
in the body,
you can oxidize
your cholesterol,
and that can cause problems.
So the issue is not to eliminate
or suppress cholesterol,
which is fundamental
to our health.
In fact, it's the most powerful
antioxidant in our body,
and now, we're suppressing it.
What we should be doing
is eliminating the cause
of the inflammation.
What's the cause
of the inflammation?
Bad dietary choices.
Our rush towards a diet
away from fat
towards carbohydrate-rich foods
could actually be fueling rates
of, for example, overweight
and obesity,
but also allied problems
including
cardiovascular disease,
heart disease, and stroke,
and what we call
type two diabetes.
One of the pervading theories
as to what it is
that actually causes illness,
be it type two diabetes,
or excess weight,
or cardiovascular disease,
relates
to a physiological process
known as inflammation.
So for example,
if I, you know, kick a table
hard enough with bare feet,
after an hour or two,
I'm gonna have a red,
swollen, tender toe.
That is inflammation.
But we're talking about here
a sort of
lower-grade inflammation
throughout the body.
What's called
systemic inflammation.
Basically, it's inflammation
that occurs in the body
that isn't easily detected
on a kind of microscopic level.
That's the kind of
starting point
for a lot of chronic
lifestyle diseases.
Now, systemic inflammation
appears to be a potent cause
of excess weight
and other chronic diseases.
One of the things
that causes inflammation
within the body
is spikes in blood sugar.
Now, that is another reason
for not eating a diet
replete with foods
that actually cause
spikes in blood sugar.
Some can be caused by exercise,
or stress, or injury,
but most of the negative
inflammatory responses
are from our modern diet,
and those are foods
that we're not designed to eat,
and that's grains, legumes,
processed foods,
pasteurized dairy.
Another thing we know
causes inflammation
is a sort of fat
called the omega-6 fats
that we find, for example,
in vegetable oils.
So you find it in sunflower oil,
or safflower oil,
or soy oil.
So very often,
we're advised to eat these
in preference to saturated fat.
But actually,
there's an argument
for saying that the inflammation
caused by omega-6 fats,
as I say, in vegetable oils,
is something that
we should probably avoid.
As our gut becomes
more permeable,
larger and larger molecules
can move through our gut
into the bloodstream.
The body doesn't recognize
these as me.
It recognizes them as not me,
so it develops
an antibody to attack it.
Now, these things,
these little structures,
tend to resemble
other parts of our body
that are me.
So as the antibodies go in
and attack that thing,
then they go...
They're moving
down the bloodstream,
and they go, "Oh!
That knee joint looks a lot like
that thing I just attacked."
And it attacks the knee,
or it attacks something else.
As the inflammation gets worse,
the assault
on the colon continues
through this excess of grain,
and legume, and processed food,
the junctions widen,
and widen, and widen,
and the problem gets
more and more exacerbated
and more and more serious.
There is significant evidence
that this type of inflammation
leads to a whole host
of modern lifestyle diseases
from heart disease, strokes,
diabetes, cancer...
The whole gamut
of modern lifestyle disease.
Whatever is weakest
in your body,
the inflammation will attack
and have the most damage to.
We see the symptoms manifest
perhaps uniquely
in different individuals,
but they share a common cause,
poor food choices in their diet.
Repeated exposure
to certain foodstuffs,
repeated exposure to toxins,
the inability
for the body to defend itself
in the long term
is what allows disease
to manifest itself,
and that takes
a significant period of time.
So this isn't about
a short-term exposure
to, say, gluten.
It's what happens
over repeated exposure
from years, to decades,
to a generation or so
of exposure to these foods
that becomes harmful
and affects us
in terms of long-term,
chronic lifestyle disease.
[Commercial Narrator]
New squeeze-on Chiffon
Liquid Margarine.
The squeeze is on.
[John]
There are some fats in the diet
that really should be avoided.
For example,
the industrially-produced fats,
so processed fats.
One example of that
are what we call
partially hydrogenated fats
that are used in the processing
of many processed foods,
including some margarines.
There are other forms
of processing.
There's something called
interesterification
which involves basically
chopping up fats with enzymes
and then reassembling them
into completely novel fats.
Trans fats are
extremely unhealthy.
They have been linked
to heart disease.
They are a man-made product
by and large.
[Farley] When we eat fat
that's been overheated
or chemically altered,
they're now in a structure
that our body doesn't recognize,
and it doesn't know
what to do with them.
It has to be stored somehow
as a toxin,
maybe surrounded in body fat,
or it causes an inflammation.
It's not
a healthy source of fat,
and our body recognizes it
and has to try to deal with it.
That's why... I mean,
you can see even conventionally,
a lot of manufacturers
are now trying
to reduce the amount
of trans fats
or eliminate
trans fats entirely,
because the evidence
is overwhelming
that they are
an unhealthy source of fat.
On the other hand,
I think there's nothing
to be feared
in fats found naturally
in the diet.
Particularly in whole foods
where you find those fats
naturally within that food.
For example, a piece of meat.
[Irena] When I talk to people
about what I eat,
they get surprised that I'm...
That I look the way that I look,
and I'm not huge...
As big as a couch,
because I do eat
a lot of saturated fat.
You know, I eat lots of eggs,
and lots of butter, um...
meat.
You know, I eat
fatty cuts of meat.
I love my pork belly
and things like that.
I never used to cook
with certain parts of meat.
You know, it was always
chicken breast, steak,
maybe some mincemeat,
sausages.
Kind of your typical
protein sources.
Whereas now, you know,
I'm trying out offal.
I'm trying out
different cuts of meat.
More nose to tail
kind of dining and cooking,
which I think,
A, is more ethical
and, you know,
healthier for the planet,
because we're utilizing
all of the animal.
But it's also very nutritious.
You know, making bone broth
and cooking with all parts
of the meat that you get.
There's two cows worth
of bones in there.
And we start to cook this,
these are the sort of trimmings.
All the gristles, all the bones
go straight into the tub.
We boil them off for two days.
The American customers
come in as well.
They're asking
for it specifically.
I mean,
we sort of market this.
We don't call it
bone broth particularly.
Um, we market it as a moo shot,
which is just a quarter-pound
little tub. There's neck...
Before or after
you've been training,
so it's like a beef tea.
-Do you sell ox blood?
-Oh, yeah.
The amount of animals
that we sort of kill
in the course of a week,
I wouldn't sleep on a night
unless we utilized
every last little bit of it.
Um, you know,
if I'm taking that life,
you've got to have
lots of respect for the creature
and use every last
little bit of it.
Okay, so I'll have them
here at Picnik
if you need them.
Okay, bye.
[Naomi]
So, since everything we do
is local and seasonal,
we change our menu all the time.
So, basically, the way
that we inform customers
of what we have is
we update this lunch board here.
And then we hang little signs
in the fridge,
so people know
what entree they're getting.
I feel like
we work around the clock.
You know, 'cause we're always
trying to keep things updated
in such a small space,
we're always having
to re-merge things
and move stuff around.
And, I mean,
if you guys could see,
like, how funny it is for us
to, like, run out of soup
and clean the soup well
with our little, tiny sinks.
It's... [laughs] It's kind of
a logistical nightmare.
So we just have to try
to figure out so many ways
to work around it.
I mean,
any time someone approaches me,
and they're like,
"I wanna build one of these."
Or, "I wanna build a business
around Paleo."
It's like, you have to know...
Especially trailer living,
it's a 100-hour-a-week job.
Minimum. Minimum.
I mean, constantly,
from the day...
The second
I get up in the morning, baking,
to then running the shop,
to then going home,
and checking in on social media,
and responding to emails.
You do need proper fuel, though,
to keep that, that energy going.
Otherwise, you would never
be able to thrive.
I mean, I think that
the only reason I'm able to work
the amount I'm able to work
is because the nutrition
that I focus on.
So, here's the thing
about saturated fat.
I am, by no means, a scientist.
I am just someone
who loves butter.
I love the way that it tastes.
I love the way it makes me feel.
And the fact that
I eat it every day,
and it makes me feel better,
it makes my brain feel clearer,
and it's made my weight
stabilize 25 pounds lighter
than it used to be.
It makes me feel like
it's a pretty awesome food.
I'm gonna be honest with you.
Suddenly,
I could eat saturated fat,
and I did,
because I hadn't for so many--
for such a long time.
So, I loved it.
Yeah, and I went
all the way for it.
People were worried about that,
and they thought,
"Okay, this can't be healthy."
Of course, I delivered proof
that it did...
that it was healthy, in fact.
It did not completely destroy
my health as was predicted.
We have this notion
that certain fats
cause heart disease
like the ones that we find
in red meat and dairy products,
so-called saturated fat.
That doesn't stand up either.
There really is no evidence
linking saturated fat
with heart disease.
All the things that
we're concerned about
in terms of anti-aging.
So, most women
are preoccupied with this.
You know, we wanna care
about our skin, and our hair,
and so on.
Saturated fats
are extremely important
for this aspect
of kind of cell development.
If you look
at all the major reviews
in the last few years,
and there's been
three or four of them,
none of them
actually link saturated fat
with heart disease.
[Commercial Narrator]
Oh, it's I Can't Believe
It's Not Butter.
Fresh butter taste
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[John]
When you think about it,
this whole idea
that saturated fat
does not cause heart disease
may sound vaguely heretical,
okay, because
we've had that drummed into us
for the last 30 or 40 years.
But saturated fat
is a constituent
in... many foods,
including red meat.
Now, you could argue
that red meat has been
in the human diet
for about two
and a half million years,
which would lead you to conclude
that saturated fat
has been in the human diet
for about two
and a half million years.
You look at the foods
that are healthy for us to eat,
and they all have
saturated fats in them,
then what does that tell us?
The egg white comes
with an egg yolk.
The fish protein comes
with the fish fat.
The animal protein comes
with animal fat.
We don't eat egg whites.
We don't eat lean meat.
We don't just remove
the fish oil from the fish
and then eat the fish.
We eat the entire animal.
That's how it's found in nature.
That's how
we're supposed to eat it.
That's the best thing
for our body.
So when you look at it
through that lens,
it perhaps doesn't look so mad
that saturated fat
doesn't appear
to cause heart disease at all.
People are encountering
higher rates of heart disease
than ever before,
even though we've had 30 years
of this low-fat diet mantra.
It definitely isn't working.
I'm... very excited
any time I see an article
in the media
about how maybe saturated fat
isn't that bad for us,
and I feel like
we're coming out
of the dark ages...
on at least that level.
By increasing the amount
of dietary fat that
I've been taking,
I've actually improved
my blood profile,
my blood marker profile
for cholesterol
and triglycerides.
That's evidence for me
that this journey
is worthwhile partaking.
[Johannes Kwella]
Our overall activity level
shrinks down dramatically.
So, we sit in an office
for 8 to 12 hours.
Then we drive
directly into a bar,
sitting down again.
Sitting in a car.
Sitting in a bar.
Going home
and sitting down on a couch
in front of a TV.
So, basically,
all we do is sitting
and getting from our chair
to our car or to the next chair.
The whole ethos now
is to sit down at a desk
and at a computer all day.
We sit in such a closed position
which is terrible
for our posture,
terrible for our bowel function,
terrible for the whole way
our body just processes food,
energy, blood, water.
[Farley] It's a sad statement
about the health
of our population
when people consider walking
from one place to the other
an exercise.
That's just how
we're supposed to move, right?
There are tons of people
coming into the BOX
and having no results at all
or getting stuck
throughout a routine
at a conventional gym
or commercial gym.
And then they,
within the shortest time,
sometimes within
two to four weeks,
sometimes up to 8 to 12
or 16 weeks,
they get amazing results.
The most of the time,
it goes hand in
with an approach to better diet.
If you eat right,
that's 85, 90%
If you go for walks,
that's another 5%.
But if you wanna take it
to the next step,
then weight-bearing exercise,
anabolic exercises
like weight training
and sprint work would be best,
or high-intensity sprints
on bikes, that type of thing.
What we're doing here is
we warm you up,
and then we get you through
a really high-intensity workout,
which is, like,
short but intense.
So, it's mimicking more
this flight or fight mode,
and it's not extensive cardio
and extensive stress levels.
What you don't wanna do
is chronic, repetitive,
long-distance cardio.
So, events that would be
more than 20 or 30 minutes.
Sprints cause a powerful,
positive hormonal cascade
in the body,
increasing testosterone,
growth hormone release,
which tends to create
an anabolic environment that
burns fat and builds muscle.
So a sprint would be...
I think, probably
the most powerful single form
of exercise you can do.
I would put it even higher
than weight training.
I would put weight training
just slightly below that.
Because you're using
your full body.
Now, for some people
who can't run sprints,
the second best thing would be
do sprints on an exercise bike
and then combine that
with weight training.
And weight training is just
putting a certain set of muscles
through a sprint
against a weight.
If you think
of counting the reps
as just a way of counting time,
then you just...
and each rep is taking,
say, three seconds,
then you 10 reps,
that's a 30-second activity.
So that's how you would look
at weight training.
[exerting]
Rather than activating
a small set of muscles
or a small area of their body,
we're just trying to make
and help people get the most
out of their body.
Functional movement,
it's not just about
lifting heavy weights
and just sort of burpees,
you know.
There's a lot of movement
in nature that we do already
that's very functional,
and it's the way
our body is designed to move.
Whether
it's swimming in the ocean,
or hiking in the mountains,
or in my case, you know,
I like rock climbing,
because
it's something very primal.
There's flow when you do it.
It's almost like
a meditative state.
You know,
you're using the whole body.
You're kind of playing
with another object.
And it's a very social sport,
almost sort of tribal...
to me, anyway.
But I think people have
to sort of re-evaluate
what functional movement is.
Sometimes, it's just
walking up the hill really fast,
or climbing up a tree,
or lifting heavy boxes
and things like that.
You can find functional movement
in everyday life.
[Darryl]
We need to have an adequate
and substantial amount
of movement
in order to be better aligned
with our genetic heritage.
[Darryl] Again, looking at
our hunter-gatherer ancestors,
they had to move
as part and parcel
of their day-to-day existence.
If they didn't move,
they couldn't eat.
It was as simple as that.
So today,
although we don't have
to hunt and gather our food
as we did in the past,
we still need to mimic
some of those ancestral
movement patterns.
So, from walking, to sprinting,
to lifting heavy loads,
to kind of crawling, jumping,
all of the kind of
fundamental movement patterns
that were important then
are just as important now.
[laughing]
There's definitely a discord
between conventional workout
methodology
and what we should be doing
according to our genetic
heritage.
So, exercise today
is very much about performance.
Sometimes it's seen
as a way to lose weight.
Very often, it isn't seen
as a way to promote good health.
Growing up, my father
was completely stressed out.
But he would go "play" tennis,
and it was like a chore.
Because it's like,
"Aw, crap, I'm late,
and I gotta rush over there.
And now, I'm gonna play tennis,
and we're gonna make it
totally competitive."
Which nothing wrong with that,
but it doesn't...
alleviate stress.
It's not relaxing.
And then rush home
and do whatever.
Most of the practices
that we follow
in terms of exercise
tend to be very specialist.
So, I'm a runner,
so I will continue to run,
and I will continue to run
further distances
and increase my volume.
If I'm great at playing
a particular sport,
I'll spend my time
and invest my time
in that particular sport.
But as humans,
we were designed
to be movement generalists.
We weren't designed
to be focused
on one particular activity.
We would have to cover
a wide range of movements.
[Naomi] I really have never
related well to exercise, like,
in a gym setting.
I never
really have responded well
to, like, pushing my body
to the physical limits
just to get physical results.
But I enjoy going
out into nature,
and moving my body,
and going on hikes,
and interacting with water,
and trees, and wind.
And you know what?
That, to me, I think
is very kind of primal
and instinctual,
and something that
we're kind of detached from.
Push! Push!
Push! Come on, mate!
[Darryl]
Misconceptions about exercise
is that it has to be punishing.
It has to be grueling.
It has to be something
that you have to do
as part of...
Almost treat it as a hobby
or something that you do
when you have some free time.
Exercise should be,
or activity most importantly,
should be about integration
with your day-to-day life.
It's like we...
As adults, we're like...
We try and schedule in our play,
and you can't do that.
You have to kind of wing it
a little bit.
It's not that
we don't have time.
'Cause that's a crock.
We just don't know how to do it.
It's like,
if I told most adults,
"All right, here's a field.
There's a tree. There's this,
there's that. Go play."
They'd just stand there
like lumps.
They wouldn't know what to do.
They wouldn't go climb the tree,
or roll around, or anything.
And it's kind of sad
that we just forget
how to do that.
[Irena]
I think you need
a certain balance
of not moving too much
and having enough rest.
We know
we're chronically under-slept
and stressed.
[Farley] So, if we get someone
who is doing the sprint work,
and they're eating right,
but then they're staying up
till two in the morning
watching TV,
it's completely
counter-productive.
A lack of sleep is a great way
for you to continue
to have issues
with managing weight.
Part of that is because
your cortisol production
tends to be out of whack.
Also, the hunger hormones,
the ghrelin, the leptin,
can also be kind of confused
based on a lack of sleep.
And that can all stem
from the amount
of light exposure you get,
the time
for your melatonin production.
So if you're using
a lot of electronic devices
at night,
your body is
not prepared for sleep.
So you have less deep sleep
and less REM sleep,
and then the cycle
kind of continues.
So sleep is extremely important,
and the hormones
that are kind of involved
in managing sleep
and managing
and regulating appetite
are all inter-linked.
So, as well as getting
your sun exposure, vitamin D,
it also lets the body know
when it should be alert,
and alive, and well,
and also when the body
should be kind of slowing down
and preparing itself
for deep sleep.
So, anything that you do
outside of that
or kind of out of sync
with that process,
may mean you're likely
to increase weight,
especially around the middle.
By applying a Paleo lifestyle...
And, again, we're talking
what food works best
for that individual,
getting your sleep down,
your stress, all those things.
If you apply
all of those aspects,
I think a lot of people
would feel a lot better,
be on a lot less medications,
have a lot less
in health care costs
and everything else,
and just a better quality
of life in general.
[Darryl] Now, I realize
that it's not about
what you inherited
in terms of a gene.
It's about what you decide to do
in terms of gene expression,
in terms of lifestyle
that affects
how your genes respond
to your environment.
[Darryl]
I'm gonna tell you
about my first client.
Some of you have met
my first client.
He worked in banking.
This person used to be diabetic.
What's interesting
is after
a very short-term intervention,
so about six... to be fair,
probably about nine months,
six to nine months
of intervention,
which included diet,
which included
other lifestyle changes,
including activity.
We have the after picture.
Blood pressure became optimal.
The blood glucose normalized.
Hardly any of the LDL.
Triglycerides were...
dropped to the floor.
The body fat was below 10%.
Visceral fat was
basically optimal again.
And they weren't suffering
from all those problems
in terms of weight problems.
Diagnosis at that point was,
"Actually, this is pretty good.
"Maybe this
should be continued."
Of course, some of you know
that that client was me.
[Darryl] After conducting
the Paleo diet as almost like
a one-person experiment,
it was all looking far better
than anything else that I did.
And probably
the most interesting aspect
of that is
I didn't have to resort
to any medication,
which was the recommendation
at the time by my doctor.
Within three weeks,
I felt amazing.
I no longer had IBS.
I no longer had
chronic fatigue syndrome.
I no longer had pain
every time I ate.
I no longer had
what I thought was
early-onset rheumatoid
arthritis,
which everybody in my family
had been diagnosed with.
It was gone. All of it was gone.
So, within about six weeks,
I lost six years' worth
of fat, really,
that I had accumulated
through my relatively unhealthy
lifestyle in medical school.
But the thing
that was really noticeable
was that I quite quickly,
within maybe two weeks or so,
had more energy
than I'd experienced
in really the whole
of my adult life.
I just felt fundamentally
a lot better.
I either had a gut,
or I could see stomach muscles,
one of the two.
I prefer to see stomach muscles.
I'll take that over a gut.
As a side bonus,
within a week or so
of starting the diet,
my rash over my chest
and under my arms disappeared
and never came back.
[Patricia] In combination
with changing my diet,
changing my exercise program,
I was able to bring
my body fat percent down 10%,
increase my muscle mass
very dramatically.
I used to have colds
all the time.
Colds that would often lead
to severe bronchitis.
After a while,
I discovered just...
I realized that they were gone.
I very rarely get ill.
When I do get ill,
I recover from it a lot quicker.
My immune system is so strong
that I recover much quicker,
and I heal much quicker.
So I think,
overall, though, yeah,
I'd say 100% health all the way.
Actually, I was in a debate
the other day
in... Ireland,
and there was this nutritionist.
She turned to me
when I was speaking,
and she was like,
"I would like to see
your cholesterol values."
Or, "I would like to see
your blood work." Yeah.
[laughs] And actually,
I answered her.
I said, "My blood values are,
are perfect.
"They're much better
than when I was a vegetarian
for 10 years."
My doctor always tells me
that I'm in excellent health.
And this is very different
than before
as being a vegetarian.
So over the years,
what I've seen is
many individuals try
this dietary approach
and have fundamental changes
in not just their weight,
but their wellness,
their energy, their wellbeing.
If you look at their blood work,
that generally improves as well.
When we started our practice,
and I started
actually implementing it
and saw dramatic changes
in people's lives, then that...
And not just one,
but everybody
that we dealt with.
Then I realized that
that was a very powerful tool.
More powerful than anything
that I'd ever done previously
as a physician.
Just teaching people how to eat.
Simple. Yeah.
So, look, there is no such thing
as a panacea.
But in all my time
as a practicing doctor,
I don't think I've seen
anything that comes
as close to it as this.
When I started eating Paleo,
I had a pretty low budget...
and I still could do that.
You can find alternatives
to everything.
You don't need to eat
grass-fed beef every day.
Essentially,
meat, fish, fruits,
and vegetables.
and then everyone can do that.
Pork chops and some vegetables,
or I make some kind of stew,
or braise,
or pulled pork
that I can throw in the oven
and forget about,
and roast chickens.
You can have a healthy diet
if your major protein
and fat sources
were fish and eggs.
So it doesn't have to be meat.
I eat so many different things
that I never ate before.
There's more than enough
to replace the foods
that I don't eat anymore.
I think just about any chef
would be completely thrilled
to be given a basket
of Paleo ingredients,
'cause
they're really high-quality.
And you're cooking
with really good meats,
and really good vegetables,
and local, seasonal produce.
Sometimes if I'm trying
to recreate a dish
from my childhood
or an ethnic Thai dish
that I want to be
exactly how I remember it,
it's about playing with flavors,
and balances, and textures.
That's hugely important to me
is...
making sure that people get
to keep that experience of food.
[Irena]
It's really strange
to call it a diet,
because
it's not actually a diet.
It's just a way of eating.
And I think the connotation
with the "diet" is that
it's in some way restrictive
and in some way,
bland and boring.
You know, you cut out
lots of those things.
You know, now, I love cooking
with things like cauliflower,
and beet root, and celeriac,
artichokes, endives,
things that I probably
never used to eat before.
You know, it'd be broccoli,
and carrots, and your typical
kind of three veg and a meat.
Whereas now, I get to experiment
with lots of new herbs,
and spices,
and different techniques,
and sort of applying that
to sort of whole foods.
You know,
you wanna keep it varied,
so you try out
different cuisines,
cooking with different seafood
and different fish.
That's exciting to me,
and I think that's what I love
about cooking Paleo.
[Boris] I have discovered
the Paleo diet.
I was overwhelmed by it.
I, per se, wanted to make it
the center of my life.
And we rediscovered
the joy of eating, of cooking.
Wanted to share that.
So we tried out to...
you know, to
run a small restaurant.
We never expected it
to become so well-known
and so popular.
[Boris] A lot of people come
with a certain prejudice.
They heard about the Paleo diet.
They hear the word "diet,"
which actually,
I don't like to use either,
and they immediately think
of health food,
which is, by definition,
not so tasty,
and they think of restriction.
They came
for the theatrical side of it.
They expected to be served
by someone wearing fur
and on stone plates.
Then they come
to our restaurant,
and they see abundance,
abundance in colors,
abundance in flavors.
And they were surprised
by the fact that
it was quite... a nice
and normal environment
with great food.
They can feast on food.
That is, for many people,
an eye-opener that makes them
enthusiastic, of course.
Plus, they can eat fat...
[laughs]
Which carries flavor.
I mean, it's an essential part
of a meal.
We try to not make it
boring at all
and very exciting.
People get surprised
when they visit my website,
because it's not even
for people that eat Paleo.
It's just good food
made with whole foods
ingredients
and good flavors, you know,
lots of herbs, and spices,
and things like that.
I think what I'm trying to do,
with me running my food blog
and publishing cookbooks, is
actually trying to show people
that eating healthy
or living healthy is not boring.
You're not missing out
on anything.
You know, I think the perception
is that the diets are temporary.
It's a Band-Aid solution
to fix the problem.
It's like taking a pill.
What I'm trying to show
it can be a sustainable...
It has longevity.
It can be a sort of
everlasting type of,
way of eating and living.
And it's varied. It's practical.
It's accessible.
And it's very much doable
by anyone.
And so, if I can change
people's perception
about healthy eating
and healthy living,
that it's not sort of
just for the elite few,
it can be applied
to any kind of lifestyle,
budget,
country, location, gender,
then hopefully,
I've done my job well.
[Mark]
I've ordered some biltong
for it,
but we just need
to add to the order.
It's gonna be here on Friday.
Okay. There should have been
an extra in that last lot.
Yeah, there was. I used it.
Oh... For what? That packs?
Uh, no, that's included
in what we needed to order.
Right. Okay.
[Peter] The growth
over a short period of time
has been huge.
Our trade sales have increased
month on month,
and our website sales
have, again, increased
month on month.
We haven't actually had a month
that we've gone backwards.
Even continuing for Christmas
and all that sort of stuff
as well.
We've been overwhelmed
by the growth of it
and the reception
and the feedback
that we've been getting as well.
[Mark] I guess that's what
gets us up every morning is
not only do we wanna provide
the best products that we can
to people,
but part of what we do
is trying to help
educate people.
[man speaking foreign language]
[Kwella]
The growth of the channel
and of the BOX
is telling me that
we're doing the right thing
at the right time.
So, people are having
their eyes opened for it
and their minds opened for it,
and they're open for new things.
[Naomi] What drives me is
the fact that I'm so passionate
about this movement.
I mean, it has changed my life
in so many ways.
It's built self-confidence,
it's eliminated health problems,
and it just
makes me feel awesome.
And so, I just feel
this dire need to, like,
translate that to our customers
and get people excited
and encouraged
about doing something
that's gonna help them.
That's what drives me every day.
I would not put
my heart and my soul
into this business
and all of these resources
and all of these finances
if I didn't believe
in what I was doing.
[Man]
There aren't that many places
in the world
where like-minded people
can congregate,
and get together,
and share, not just their ideas
and experiences,
but sort of the emotion
that goes along with
how you feel living this way.
So it's quite powerful.
It's quite empowering
to be able to get here and, uh,
and share stories
and hear other people's stories
about
the amazing transformations
they've made in their lives.
[Michelle]
Yes, people make choices
that they maybe shouldn't have,
but you know what?
We still have answers,
and it's better for them
if they're out of that mess,
better for our country.
It's better for everybody
if they're fixed,
and they're healed
instead of giving them drugs
and telling them,
"Sorry, you're just gonna
have to live in a wheelchair,
and this is your life,
and the quality of your life
doesn't matter."
Bullshit. Bullshit.
I'm sorry.
That's just not right.
The reason why Keith and I do
what we do here at Paleo f(x)
is to reach
as many people as possible.
I will get on the highest roof
and scream the loudest
if I have to,
but what I do is
to try to save as many people
as I possibly can.
And I feel like the reason
that I have to do that
is because conventional wisdom
has gotten us to this point,
and the only way out
is by helping people understand
there's a better way.
[Cain] At that time,
for me to find the Paleo diet,
I had to search, and search,
and search.
I wanted to get
more awareness out there.
It was like
it's harder to find,
and so I thought
it would be really easy to find
if it was just staring
at somebody on a... counter
or on a, on a magazine rack
at a checkout aisle.
And so, I thought,
"Okay, well, let's, um...
Let's just do the magazine,"
and my wife, of course,
thought I was an idiot,
because...
I have zero design experience
or...
publishing experience,
or anything.
I wanted to get
in front of people
where they needed it.
So, the guy or the gal
pushing out their cart
of processed crap
from whatever grocery store,
I wanted them to see a cover.
Hopefully, they look at it.
They grab it.
Those are the people
I wanted to see.
Not the CrossFitting, uh...
You know, person who's already
following Paleo kind of stuff.
I wanna provide information
for them as well,
but at the time,
I wanted to reach people
that maybe needed it more
than those people
that have kind of
already found it.
[Darryl] As human beings,
we have far more in common
with each other.
Regardless of where we're from,
regardless
of our racial heritage,
we have far more in common,
from a DNA point of view,
than what separates us.
And so, believing
that this diet
is optimal for humans,
I believe that anyone
and everyone will benefit
from the Paleo diet.
Paleo is for everyone,
and it should be for everyone.
I mean, there is
such a health care crisis
in this country
with obesity,
and chronic conditions,
and sickness,
that if everyone just paid
a little bit more attention
to what they put in their mouth,
I think we could
100% combat that.
If you wanna lose weight,
improve your performance
as an athlete,
everyone can get benefits
from it.
Changing your sleeping habits,
running outside,
or doing more movements,
reducing your stress
as much as possible,
actually getting
out in the sun regularly,
and getting in touch with nature
and being outdoors,
not using technology
as much as well.
Um, and I think
when people combine that
with the food,
they'll really feel
the positive effects
that it has on their wellbeing
and their sort of longevity.
Aging is about inflammation.
And if you keep your diet clean,
it's anti-inflammatory.
And so,
it is an anti-aging diet.
And it's designed
for the duration of your life.
You need to cut out the grains,
and you need to cut out dairy,
and you need
to cut out vegetable oils.
The first thing you do
is you start at zero, right?
You get rid of all the poisons,
you bring in the good stuff,
and you start from there.
Cutting out grains, and sugars,
and legumes, all that kind
of stuff,
and doing it
for 30 days is good.
Everybody should do that.
And that's just
because those are
the biggest-offending things,
or some of them are just...
horrible, food-like items
that nobody should eat anyway.
But you gotta pull
all that stuff out for 30 days
just to reset.
Because you can't listen
to your own body and...
"Oh, this makes me feel good.
This makes me feel bad."
Unless you get that baseline
kind of reset thing going.
Get rid of the all the poisons
and toxins in your environment.
Just think of it
as like spring cleaning.
Except that you haven't done
your spring cleaning
in 47 years, right?
Knowing what to look for.
Like, if you go into a shop,
it's really easy
to go down one aisle
and make a bad choice
than go down another aisle
and make a better choice.
Shift the emphasis
more towards foods
that are natural,
unprocessed, primal, Paleo,
generally lower-carb foods,
okay.
So, we're looking at things
like meat, and fish, and eggs,
and vegetables.
People over-complicate things.
It's just natural food.
It's just what you can
go and buy from your butcher's,
from your green grocer.
Try buying food and eating food
that still looks like what it...
like what it is originally,
like as the source of the food.
For some people,
if they even think about
cutting out a certain food,
they shut down.
So, I think
what I usually encourage
people to do is
just take baby steps
and not make it
so all or nothing.
Least one thing
that could be considered here
is to take the two main
meals of the day, say
lunch and evening meal,
and convert them into something
looking like Paleo.
Just try to replace
the idea in your head
that you cannot do that
with "I can do something
much better."
Just the fact that
you're reducing your reliance
on processed foods
and manufactured foods,
you're gonna be seeking food
from better sources,
is gonna improve your health.
Make a commitment
to learning how to cook
the foods that you like,
and you start to experiment,
and you take the time,
and you get on the Internet
and do some research.
You can buy some recipes books
or some cookbooks.
And then you stay with it
long enough
so that you can have
an intimate and intuitive
relationship with your own body
and to know whether things
are good or bad for you.
Take some blood panel work
and do a snapshot
before and after,
and then you can see
what the results are
for yourself.
See how you look, feel,
and perform.
I mean, you have nothing to lose
but to possibly...
get healthier,
feel better, lose weight...
you know,
if you have any diseases,
possibly reverse them.
Whatever the reasons behind...
Whether it's the science,
whether it's, you know,
another person's experience,
if that works for you,
and you're seeing an improvement
based on your blood work,
and based on, you know,
reduction in body fat,
and improvement
in body composition,
then it's something
you're likely to want
to continue.
I cannot make you worse
by giving you real food,
whole food.
I mean, you know,
what's the downside to that?
Even if you eat meat now,
then you're more likely
to chose better qualities,
and better cuts of meat,
and more healthy sources
of meat.
You recognize that what...
the animal that you eat,
whatever they're eating
also contributes
to their health.
You will just, I guess,
feel more in touch
with where your food comes from.
And I think
you don't need rocket science
for that.
If you eat more good food...
that's great.
If you're still eating
some of the things
that you used to eat,
it's way better
than just eating all of that,
because you're so afraid
to make any changes at all.
Once you start
to be consciously aware
of what you're eating,
and then you apply that
to your internal environment,
then you realize
you're gonna have
to make some changes.
Or if you're not gonna be able
to make those changes,
willingly accept
the consequences
of your actions.
If you start something,
make sure you last long enough
to feel a change.
So, don't skip
on the first days,
or after 10 days,
"Oh, it doesn't work."
Like, after two weeks,
you cannot say
if a diet works on not.
And "diet" not in terms
of really "dieting,"
but, like, in terms
of nourishing your body
and eating.
Starting off
by implementing the diet,
you're more likely
to use that as a gateway
to other areas of your lifestyle
that will also improve.
You're more likely to start
thinking about activity levels
and increasing those.
You're more likely
to start questioning
the type of products
you have in your household.
You know, the toxicity of those.
You're more likely
to consider, "Okay, you know,
maybe I am drinking too much,
and I need to moderate that."
There are other areas
of your lifestyle that I believe
will be looked at in more detail
when you embark on this journey.
It's gonna get better,
not worse.
So,
that's how I would look at it.
It's a lifetime commitment.
Just go out and have fun.
It's a marvelous lifestyle,
which brings so much more
to your life, really.
That's kind of the only thing
I can tell somebody.
I mean,
do you wanna feel better or not?
I don't know.
Paleo came into my life,
because my whole life,
I've struggled with weight.
I was 300 pounds.
My face was super-round.
I was 285 to 290 pounds.
I was lethargic,
and, you know, just sleepy,
and just kind of
walking through life.
I've been "diagnosed"
with cancer, lupus.
I used to be on
lots of steroids.
I used to have
to inject morphine into myself.
About two and a half years ago,
I found the Paleo lifestyle.
I resisted it. I resisted...
vehemently at first.
I though it was, like,
the craziest thing
you could think of.
"This is ridiculous.
I believe in vegetarianism."
One day, I decided
to take it all
into my own hands.
Find out what works for me,
what doesn't.
That's how I found out
about Paleo.
I had to make a change
in the way I was eating,
the way I was living.
Okay,
we're throwing away everything.
We're starting new.
My light came on.
I figured it out.
I was like,
"This makes so much sense."
I've lost 80 pounds
within one year.
Got to run a mile
for the first time in my life.
I started exercising.
I made more
and more food choices.
It's me, you know.
My mood isn't determined
on if I just had a insulin spike
or not.
Within a few months,
I was doing 5Ks,
and obstacle course races,
and crazy stuff like that.
I have progressive MS.
And I went from full-time care
to basically,
I'm completely self-sufficient.
And there's so much more to it
than just going and eating...
you know,
eating, getting the cravings,
put something in your stomach.
It's all about focusing
on your body.
I now believe
that Paleo is about nourishment.
More so than I believe
that it's about elimination,
or about being thin.
Natural patterns,
natural eating...
and a life that's
genuinely worth living.
I completely got my life back,
and I continue to heal,
and I believe
that self-care is health care,
and food is medicine.
And I just want
the whole world to know that.
The things
that make my body feel the best
and the things
that make me feel
more like myself
are the things
that are closest to nature.
And really, the Paleo diet
covers all of that,
and it makes me feel more alive,
more happy.
I got... I got everything
that I lost back.
And what I needed
was to... think about Paleo
in a way that was...
about enriching my body
and my spirit.
Literally, everything I am now
in life or everything I'm doing
has been traced back
to that moment
where I kind of
discovered this whole thing.
Step in.
Get your toe wet somewhere.
It's all about eating clean,
playing often,
and crushing life.
It's really fun.
It's like a whole new life.
This is... This is it.
Some form of it is it.
There's just really no
way that I can pay back
except sharing it with others.