Book Review: The Primal Blueprint — Mark Sisson

Reprogram Your Genes for Effortless Weight Loss, Vibrant Health, and Boundless Energy by Mark Sisson

Ten laws for improving health and happiness

Our human DNA is the same as that of our hunter/gatherer ancestors who enjoyed good health and vitality before the agricultural revolution occurred 10,000 years ago. However, though agriculture has allowed us to dominate the globe, our brains and bodies have gotten smaller and we have seen a decline in health. The industrial revolution, with its fast food and fast life full of excesses, has all but pushed us over the edge.

A great many of us suffer from obesity and chronic diseases that affect our quality of life. This book provides ten diet and lifestyle laws that will help reverse these diseases so that we can enjoy a vital life into our later years. The laws include what we should eat, what we shouldn’t eat, advice on exercise and movement and the importance of sunbathing, sleep and play.

The low-carb, paleolithic diet includes meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds, and it avoids grains, legumes, processed foods and unhealthy fats. Sisson’s “primal” diet departs from the other paleolithic authors by embracing saturated fats, dietary cholesterol, and dairy. And while the diet is low-carb (owing primarily to the avoidance of grains), Sisson encourages consumption of vegetables and fruits, which supply much-needed nutrition.

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Sisson encourages us to rethink our priorities and writes:

Let me reiterate my distaste for a perfectionist mentality toward diet, physical appearance, lifestyle change, and even school, career, and competitive athletics. Respecting the broad definition of health and the legacy of a simple lifestyle that our ancestors lived, we need to reject the measuring and judging forces of society and pursue fun and peace of mind in conjunction with health and fitness goals.

Those of us who have lived in the competitive fast lane and found it wanting will nod our heads in agreement with many of Sisson’s sentiments.

This is not a short-term, weight-loss diet book but a book for those wanting to make life-long, healthy dietary changes, lose weight, reverse chronic disease, and develop a fun but productive exercise regime.

Buy The Primal Blueprint from Amazon or directly from the author, Mark Sisson.

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Here are a few other books on the paleo diet and the saturated fat/cholesterol debate that might also be of interest:

The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Food You Were Designed to Eat and NeanderThin: Eat Like a Caveman to Achieve a Lean, Strong, Healthy Body. (These author recommend reduced saturated fat consumption.)

The Great Cholesterol Con.

Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health