Well, It’s been a hell of a lot longer than we’ve had modern food production capabilities. Not that ALL food production DRASTICALLY changes our food, but some foods we put in our body are very very new to our human nature. Take for example dairy products. How many people are lactose intolerant? I am certainly one of those people. One ounce of dairy and I’ll be confined to the space between my bedroom and bathroom for the rest of the night. I’m also very sensitive to greasy foods like burgers and fries or pretty much anything you find at mcdonalds.

Now, I do have unusually infant-like digestive capabilities but at the same time we have to realize that humans have only been cultivating dairy for hundreds of years. We’ve only had Mcdonalds for a few decades and it’s not irregular for our bodies to stop producing a lactose enzyme or have trouble breaking down grease. So in the caveman diet you are limited to things that were only available to humans during the paleolithic period. This is the period in time where apparently we developed most of our nutritional needs.

What does this equate too? Seafood, lean meats, vegetables, fruits.. and thats pretty much it. What do I have to stop eating? Grains, dairy, spices, sugars, starchy foods.. anything outside of the paleolithic period. It sounded easy since I already avoided dairy and never had a big sweet tooth. I loved my meat and potatoes and all it really meant was I replace potatoes with a side of veges and I’m good.

Well it wasn’t easy. I lasted about 2 weeks and lost about 5 pounds. You might say that’s great to loose that much weight! But I’m a skinny guy and I eat and work out to gain weight, not loose it. Mind you, I was certainly at a very healthy lean weight but I wasn’t getting as many calories as I should have.

The first thing I did on the diet was buy a whole bunch of healthy organic meats and vegies from the local organic market. This seemed great, but my first great challenge I soon discovered was to not use any spices. No salts, pepper, sauces, anything… It was like eating a hockey puck complimented by grass. Not too impressed.

The second thing that I found tough was to cut out any caffeine. I’m a guy who loves redbull. I drink one before the gym or I drink one before going out. I also don’t mind a coffee once in awhile but it seemed that was getting cut too. Ugh, not only does my food taste bland, but I’m cranky and low energy.

This went on for about a week and I found myself mixing it up between seafood (which I was allowed to spice with lemon and dill! hooray!), steaks and chicken for most nights. I usually complimented with either mixed vegetables, swiss chard or spinach.

After about a week my energy levels started to come back to normal and I felt a little bit more stable in my overall day. I imagine this was because I had cut out most sources of simple carbs like glucose and was eating mostly a diet of protein. I was getting any extra energy from fructose in fruit before the gym or high energy periods.

It seemed to work, but I was too tempted to cheat that I gave in after a week. I added salt to my food. Not a huge deviation from the diet, but one I certainly couldn’t resist. I needed to spice my meals up. After this I found it much easier to follow the diet but I still only lasted one more week.

It was the redbull that made me cave. After that I brought back grains and couldn’t resist some starchy foods. It was really tough to follow this diet. Overall, however I think the diet could be incredibly useful for anyone wanting to improve their overall health, loose weight, or tone up. For me, it wasn’t easy finding all the calories I needed to continue gaining weight at the gym. I found myself in a bag of peanuts half the time looking for those extra calories. But just try to find unsalted peanuts in the store these days. It’s tough!

So all in all if you really want to look at dieting than I would suggest this one. However, it is tough, and I would rather suggest a simple change in your eating habits that is mindful of excess glucose or simple carbs, unneeded calories, and too much starch or grease. All the diet really did was boost protein intake from lean meat sources, limit simple carbs, and increase the intake of healthy ones (from vegies and fruits).

If you can do that on your own, great. But for most of us who aren’t nutritionists or health freaks, a look at the caveman diet might be worth your while.

Maleszyk

So by now your probably confused. Let me explain to you psychological anchoring. Say you have a stressful job and everyday you come home stressed out because your boss just yelled at you for 2 hours straight. You are really on edge and need to unwind. You take a glass, throw some ice in it and pour a few ounces of scotch (no offense scotch, you’ve put plenty o hair on me chest). You take a sip and immediately feel it sooth you as you recline in your chair and sink back into relaxation. mmm. Scotch. That’s what your all thinking right? Well you’ve just been through the process of psychological anchoring. You are now anchoring the feelings of relaxation, unwinding and relief from the bottle of scotch. Whats even worse is now you see it as a solution to your stress. Instead of telling your boss how you feel or where to go you are just drinking when you get home. You have successfully psychologically anchored an unhealthy habit.

The reason I bring this up is because psychological anchoring, wether you know about it or not, is absolutley key to living a healthy lifestyle. Being weary of how you deal with your stress, how you deal with your happyness and how you attach those emotions to your needs, desires and activities is incredibly important. As an example I recently read an article in Psychology today that outlined the impact of marketing on our lives. Most people say that they tune out ads and the daily bashing we get from marketers. On average we are exposed to about 3000 ads per day. Seriously. Just TRY not to be affected by that amount of bombardment. What was interesting about this article is how people subconsciously link emotions and feelings with the names and logos of companies. For instance, when someone mentioned the name “Disney” to an individual they described feelings of happyness, joy and adventure. When someone looked at a Coca-Cola symbol they imagined excitement, fulfilment and fun. Its unreal how much of our brain capacity is being occupied by products and images.

With this in mind we can start to realize the true potential and power of psychological anchoring, emotional value elicitation and association. While I won’t get into the emotional value elicitation and association just yet I will talk about how you can use psychological anchoring to IMPROVE your lifestyle. Next time you go to the gym, reward yourself with something that is also healthy. For me, its a protein shake. The thought of the thick chocolatey goodness of a sexy protein shake makes me want to go to the gym and push my body so it uses every last gram of protein in that shake. Some people it may be a smoothie, others an extra break at work or some a well-deserved day at the spa after a long week of training.

So next time you think of doing something unhealthy like drinking excessively, eating an entire cake or tub of ben and jerries, being lazy or just generally lacking motivation, think of how your achoring your feelings to these activities and how you can improve upon that process. Oh, and next time I decline an invitation to drink its not because I don’t appreciate your company, its probably because I appreciate your company even more than to need alcohal.

Maleszyk out.